The New Falmouth game passed into history and Alton faced the next to the last contest with confidence. Oak Grove Academy was always a worthy competitor, and this year was to meet Alton on Oak Grove ground, but the Gray-and-Gold had reached her stride and the only question that concerned her adherents was the size of the score and whether Oak Grove would be represented in it. Kenly had played a stiff game with Lorimer Saturday and had won it in the last five minutes, the final score being 16 to 13. Although the best Alton had been able to do against Lorimer was to play her to a 3 to 3 tie, the Gray-and-Gold nevertheless found encouragement in the Kenly-Lorimer game, arguing that Alton’s present playing was fifty per cent better than it had been a fortnight ago, granting which a meeting between Alton and Kenly on Saturday would have found the former easily superior. Whether this reasoning was correct or not, certain it is that neither players nor adherents doubted Alton’s ability to beat Oak Grove Academy in most decisive fashion at the end of the week. But this was before Mr. Kincaid, physics instructor, put two and two together and beheld a great light. CHAPTER XXIII M’NATT TRIES PHOTOGRAPHY Mr. Kincaid was a dapper, well-groomed little gentleman of middle age who wore a sandy mustache and squinted engagingly through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses because he was unusually near-sighted. On one occasion, when the instructor had removed his glasses to polish them and had subsequently mislaid them between the pages of a book for something like two minutes, things happened in Room G seldom witnessed! Being extremely fastidious, the instructor was a good customer of The Parisian Tailors, who occupied a small building on West Street. On the preceding Saturday, the day of the New Falmouth game, the instructor repaired himself to the tailoring shop shortly after dinner with a pair of trousers draped gracefully over one arm. He wanted those trousers nicely pressed for the next day’s wearing, and he must have them no later than this evening. Having enjoined Mr. Jacob Schacht to that effect, he remained a moment and watched that gentleman, who, by the way, looked most un-Parisian in feature, proceed to the long-delayed cleaning of a gray suit. It was a peculiar looking suit, Mr. Kincaid decided, viewing it through his strong lenses, and he made mention of his decision to Mr. Schacht. “An odd mixture,” he remarked agreeably. “I don’t think I ever saw one just like it, Mr. Schacht.”