It did seem so. There was a plain brass standard by the wicker couch, two smaller hood-shaded lights atop the book-shelves, a hanging bulb over the broad chiffonier, a squat lamp on the big, round table and a funny little blue enameled affair on the stand by the head of the bed. Only the table lamp was lighted, but the soft glow radiated to every corner of the room. Leonard’s gaze went back to the many shelves opposite. “Did you buy all those books yourself?” he asked. “Oh, no, only maybe a third of them. The folks gave me the others. They know I’m fond of them. Joe always gives me books at Christmas and my birthday.” He saw the unuttered question in Leonard’s face and smiled as he added: “They always ask me what I want, though, first.” Leonard got up then and prowled. He looked at the four pictures in plain dark-oak frames: “The Retreat from Moscow”; a quaint print of an elderly man standing before a second-hand bookstall on a Paris quay holding a huge umbrella overhead while, with one volume tucked under an arm, he peered near-sightedly into a second; a photograph of Hadrian’s Tomb and a Dutch etching of a whirling windmill, with bent sedges about a little pool and an old woman bending against the wind. “I like that one a lot,” explained Johnny. “Can’t you just see--no, I mean feel the wind? I’d like to go to Holland some day. It must be fine, I’m thinking.” Leonard had a go at the books next, Johnny pulling forth his special treasures for him. After awhile they sat down again and talked, and when, as was to be expected, football came up for discussion, the discussion became animated. Although Johnny didn’t play, he was a keen critic--and a fearless one. “There’s two or three fellows on the team,” he declared after the day’s contest had been gone over, “that would be better for a vacation, to my mind. Put them on the bench for a week, maybe, and they’d come back and earn their keep.” Leonard wanted to know the names of the gentlemen, but wasn’t sure he ought to ask. Johnny supplied them, however, without urging. “It’s Smedley and Garrick and that big Renneker I’m thinking of,” he explained. “Take Smedley, now, sure he’s a good man, but he don’t ever spit on his hands and get to work, Grant. It’s the same way with the other two, especially Renneker. He’s asleep at the switch half the time.” “But I thought he played a pretty good game to-day,” objected Leonard. “He did, but what’s a ‘pretty good game’ for a fellow who’s made the All-Scholastic?” asked Johnny witheringly. “Sure, ’tis no game at all. He has the height of a camel and the weight of a whale, and does he use either intelligently? He does not! I’m no football player, Grant--or should I be calling you General?--but I can see with half an eye, and that one shut, that the lad isn’t earning his salary.” “He doesn’t get any,” laughed Leonard. “I know, that was a figure of speech,” answered the other. “Though, by the same token, I’ll bet he’d take the salary if it was offered.”