And then, just a week ago, when Leonard had gone to bid Tim good-by, the little coach had said: “I’m sorry to lose you, Len, but you’ll be getting a bigger chance where you’re going. Sure. And you’ll be getting better handlin’, too. Take those big schools, why, they got trainers that knows their business, Len, and you’ll be looked after close and careful. Here a fellow has to do his own trainin’, which means he don’t do none, in spite of all I say to him. Sure. You’ll do fine, son. Well, so long. Don’t put your name to nothin’ without you read it first. And don’t forget what I been tellin’ you, Len: get ’em before they get you!” Well, he hadn’t put on that twenty pounds yet, for in spite of all his efforts during the summer--he had gone up to his uncle’s farm and worked in the field and lived on the sort of food that is supposed to build bone and tissue--he was only seven pounds heavier than when he had weighed himself a year ago. And now here was this fellow Renneker to further dim his chances. Leonard sighed as he turned in at the doorway of the dormitory building. If there were eleven guards on a football team he might stand a show, he thought disconsolately, but there were only two, and one of the two would be Gordon Renneker! He wondered what his chance with the scrubs would be! He tugged his heavy suit-case up one flight of stairs in Haylow and looked for a door bearing the numerals 12. He found it presently, cheered somewhat to observe that it was toward the campus side of the building. It was closed, and a card thumb-tacked to the center bore the inscription, “Mr. Eldred Chichester Staples.” Leonard read the name a second time. That “Chichester” annoyed him. To have a roommate named Eldred might be borne, but “Chichester”-- He shook his head gloomily as he turned the knob and pushed the door open. It seemed to him that life at Alton Academy wasn’t starting out very well for him.