“I see. But it must keep you pretty busy. Do you have to write the game up, too?” “Oh, yes.” Tommy showed three or four pages of awful-looking scrawls from a fountain-pen. “That’s done in a sort of shorthand, and I write it out full length at the office. Say, where did you tell me your room was? I meant to put it down, but forgot it. Purdy’s? Oh, yes; I know where that is. I want to come around some evening, if I can ever find the time. How are you getting on? Anything I can do for you? Any fellows you’d like to meet? No? Well, let me know if I can do anything for you. Very glad to, you know. That was quite a race you made the other day. Billy seems to have taken a fancy to you, doesn’t he? He’s all right, Allan; you shine up to him and-- Hello! there’s a fellow I want to see. Come and see me, will you? Twenty-two Sesson, you know. So long, old chap!” Tommy hurried pell-mell down the stand, shaking off detaining hands, and disappeared into the throng. Allan took a long breath; he felt as though a small hurricane had been playing with him. The teams came onto the field again and the second half began. It proved uninteresting, and only the superior weight of the Erskine eleven won them the game finally by the close margin of a safety. Allan followed the throng out of the enclosure and across toward the locker house and the gate. But half-way there the crowd divided, and Allan presently found himself looking on at the practise of the freshman teams. The first team had the ball on the second’s five-yard line and was trying very hard to put it over to an accompaniment of command and entreaty from the coaches. “Third down and two to go!” some one shouted. A shrill voice called a jumble of figures and a tandem slid forward at a tangent, and for an instant confusion reigned. Then suddenly a roar of laughter went up, the line of watchers broke forward, and Allan found himself directly in the path of what at first glance looked like an avalanche of canvas and leather. Springing back, he escaped being borne along by the group of struggling players, in the center of which, rising like a city sky-scraper out of a huddle of shanties, stood forth, calm and determined, the countenance of Peter Burley. In his arms, struggling but helpless, was the first eleven’s left half-back, and to his back and legs and, in short, to every portion of his anatomy, hung the enemy, for all the world like bees on a nest in swarming time. Behind them the second eleven pushed and shoved, and relentlessly the whole mass moved down the field. And somewhere, drowned by the laughter of the spectators and the despairing shrieks of “Down! Down!” from the abducted half-back, sounded feebly the referee’s whistle.