Renneker smiled more broadly. “Good boy! Speak your mind! However, if you’ll stop being peeved and think a minute you’ll see that it wouldn’t do to upset Johnny’s apple-cart at this late hour. Besides, I haven’t brought my togs, and couldn’t play decently if I had. Why, I haven’t practiced for a week, Grant.” “You don’t need practice,” responded Leonard earnestly. “A fellow like you--” “The dickens I don’t!” scoffed Renneker. “I’m as stiff as a crutch. Be a good fellow, Grant, and stop scolding.” Renneker looked at the letter in his hand, returned it to its envelope and placed it back in his pocket with a smile of resignation. “Just plain nut,” he said. “That’s what he is.” Leonard, watching, was suddenly realizing that this new acquaintance of his was a very likeable chap and that, although he did feel thoroughly out of patience with him just now, he was getting to have a sort of affection for him. Of course he wouldn’t have had Renneker suspect the fact for an instant, but there it was! The big fellow’s story seemed to explain a good deal, such as, for instance, that the calm superiority affected by him had really been a blind to conceal the fact that he was secretly in a state of nervous apprehension, in short a colossal bluff that not even Coach Cade had had the nerve to call! It must have been, Leonard reflected sympathetically, rather a job to play good football and know that at any moment exposure might occur. And, after all, that letter of George Renneker’s had rather won Leonard. Of course the fellow was an irresponsible, hair-brained ass, but, nevertheless, the reader had seemed to find something likeable in the writer of that amazing epistle, and he understood somewhat better why Gordon had felt it worth while to protect George even at the cost of his own undoing. He wasn’t frowning any longer when Renneker looked back from a momentary inspection of the flying landscape beyond the car window. Renneker must have noted the change, for he asked: “Decided to overlook my transgressions?” Leonard nodded, smiling faintly. “Yes, although I still think you’re all wrong. Let me tell you one thing, too. If--if”--he stumbled a little there--“if you’re doing this because you think I’d be--be disappointed about not playing, Renneker, you can just quit it right now. I never expected to play in this game--anyhow, I haven’t for a good while--and it won’t mean a thing to me if I don’t. So if that’s it, or if that has anything to do with it--” “My dear chap,” replied Renneker soothingly, “when you know me better you’ll realize that I’m not a Sir Launcelot or a--a Galahad. Rest quite easy.” It wasn’t, though, a positive denial, and Leonard was by no means convinced. He looked doubtfully, even suspiciously at the somewhat quizzical countenance of the other and subsided. And then a trainman banged open a door and shouted “La-a-akeville! Lakeville!” and Leonard hurried back for his suit-case.