“Let’s see them,” said Arnold. They paused in the light from a lower window in Merle and Arnold looked them over. Finally he grunted and passed them back. “I guess they wouldn’t do, Toby. They’d break in two if some one gave them a good swipe with a stick or skated into them. What you want to do is to get a pair of skating shoes and screw your skates right onto them. Those full clamp skates are always tearing your heel off.” “How much would shoes cost?” asked Toby. “Five dollars. More if you want to pay it. But they’ll stand by you for two or three years.” “Yes, but Crowell said we’d all have to have hockey gloves, and they’re frightfully expensive. And I might have to buy a pair of pads if I got to playing goal. I guess hockey’s a pretty expensive game, Arn.” “Pshaw, pads don’t cost much; only about four dollars, I think. Fifteen dollars will buy everything you’ll need.” “Gee, that’s cheap, isn’t it?” muttered Toby disconsolately. “I guess I’ll wait and see if there’s any show of making a team before I buy much.” Arnold laughed as they crossed the colonnade and turned toward the entrance to Whitson. “You were always a cautious chap, Toby!” “I have to be,” replied the other simply. “I suppose you do. Look here!” Arnold stopped in the act of pushing open the door. “I’ve got a pretty good pair of skates upstairs. They’ve got button heels, but I guess they’d be all right for you. If you want them you’re welcome. Come on up and I’ll dig them out.” They proved all right as to size, but, unfortunately, the heel-plates had been lost. Homer Wilkins, who came in while they were bewailing this fact, suggested that they could get new plates by sending to the maker, and they cheered up again. Toby bore the skates away with him to his room and, arrived there, studied that note-book again. Quite a few fellows had paid their accounts by now and so many of the entries had been scored out, but there was still nearly six dollars owing him. Most of the accounts were small, ranging from fifteen cents to thirty, but a few were larger and Frank Lamson’s was the biggest. Frank had promised to pay after vacation, but he hadn’t and Toby considered the advisability of reminding him of his promise. But Toby decided finally that he would rather lose the money than dun Frank for it any more. What he would do, though, was to spend an hour after supper trying to collect some of the other amounts due him. Having reached that decision, he started his gas stove, heated his iron and pressed two pairs of trousers and a coat and waistcoat before supper. Afterwards, he made the rounds of the dormitories before study hour and returned richer by two dollars and eighty cents. That amount, together with four dollars and twenty-two cents which he had by him, he deposited in a little cardboard box and hid under an extra pair of pajamas in a bureau drawer, after printing on the lid in ink: “Hockey Fund.”