“That’s the trouble with C Formation,” replied Joe. “If the runner does get away he has no interference half the time. The end’s supposed to get free and go ahead, but he can’t do it very often. The more I think about today’s game, fellows, the more certain I am that we were mighty lucky to break even! Lorimer ought to have won on the showing she made.” “Well, she didn’t,” answered Jack cheerfully. “And results count.” Up ahead, Bob was questioning Martin regarding the latter’s lack of enthusiasm for onions. “What is it you don’t like about them, Mart? The taste or the smell or what?” “I don’t like either,” said Martin. “Folks who eat onions belong to a low order of humanity. Criminals and idiots and such folks are always fond of them, I’ve read.” “Where do you get that stuff?” asked Stacey Ross. “Look at Garibaldi.” “Where?” asked Martin flippantly. “Wasn’t he a patriot and a man of brains and--and blameless life?” pursued Stacey. “I guess so,” assented Martin doubtfully. “All right! Garibaldi invented onions, didn’t he?” Martin viewed him suspiciously. “Well, maybe he did, but I’ll bet he didn’t eat them! Carbol invented carbolic acid, but he didn’t drink it, did he?” “Garibaldi,” remarked Bob gravely, “made onions his principal diet: ate them three times a day and fed his army on them!” “Oh, well, he was an Italian,” said Martin. “I’m talking about folks in this country.” “George Washington invariably began the day with a raw sliced onion,” said Bob. “History tells you that.” “Sure,” asserted Stacey. “Wasn’t it Washington who said ‘In onion there is strength’?” “You fellows make me weary,” retorted Martin. “I’ll bet you eat them yourselves! As I remarked hitherto, the onion is the favorite fruit of the mentally deficient! And you fellows talk like you never ate anything else!” Stacey continued to expatiate on the merits of the onion, but Bob relapsed into silence. He had been visited by an idea and he was busy developing it all the rest of the way back to school. When he said good night to Martin later in front of Lykes there was an expression on his face that might have caused the other some uneasiness had he noticed it. “It’s awfully funny,” remarked Martin after dinner the next day, “but I can still taste those onions, Brand.” “What onions?” asked Willard. “In that lunch-cart last night. Taste the smell of them, I mean. It’s just as though I’d eaten them myself. Gosh, I didn’t enjoy my dinner a bit, either. Everything seemed to smell of the beastly things!” “We didn’t have onions at our table,” said Willard. “Neither did we, but I’ll swear I could almost smell them! It’s queer, but I simply can’t stand the smell of onions. It almost makes me sick. I can go a little of it, of course, and I manage to eat soups and things like that that are flavored with onions, but I don’t like them.” “Maybe there was onion in the gravy or something,” Willard suggested. But Martin shook his head.