The lecture was interesting, but it was a bit too long, and Bert, for one, got tired of staring at stereopticon views thrown on a screen at the back of the platform long before the entertainment ended. He accompanied Ted Ball and Lum Patten over to Lykes and when Lum insisted on their coming into his room he went and stayed until twenty minutes to ten. They talked a lot of football, and Bert was surprised when Lum acknowledged that he had hot and cold shivers whenever he thought of the Kenly game. Bert had supposed such evidences of nervousness confined to inexperienced players like himself. Then Ted chuckled and said: “I’ve never been able to sleep more than three or four hours the night before a big game, fellows. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s a fact. Last year Coles was up reading poetry to me, Robert Frost’s, it was, for more than two hours. He had a theory that poetry would put me to sleep, but I guess he got hold of the wrong brand. Say, I’ll bet that if I could get a solid eight hours of sleep next Friday night I could play a wicked game Saturday! But I shan’t. I’ll lie awake for hours, going over signals, playing the whole blamed game in advance, from beginning to end, and wake up feeling like--like something just out of the wringer! Wonder if I can get hold of a bottle of soothing syrup!” “I sleep pretty well,” confided the center, “and generally eat a good breakfast. But I sure hate to think about the old game. Of course, after the whistle toots and the ball’s in the air I’m all right. But until then I just have to keep my mind off the thing. How’s it take you, Bert?” “That’s the funny part,” answered Bert in puzzled tones. “I’d ought to be scared, but I haven’t really thought much about it. Of course last year I didn’t have any reason to worry, because I didn’t have any idea of getting in. Perhaps that’s why I’m not nervous now. I mean there isn’t much chance of my starting the game, and by the time I do get in I’ll be sort of used to it. Maybe that isn’t very clear--” “Fine thing to keep your nerve like that,” commented Ted, “and I don’t want to say a thing to shake you, Bert, but if you don’t start against Kenly I--well, I’ll swallow the ball!” Bert looked startled, then skeptical. He turned a questioning glance toward Patten, but Lum shook his head. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I don’t get to the conferences, Bert. ‘Mine but to do or die.’” “Well, I think he’s just trying to get my goat,” said Bert, viewing Ted doubtfully. Ted grinned. “That’s it,” chuckled Lum. “He’s fixing you so you won’t be able to sleep either and can read poetry to him for a couple of hours.” When he reached Upton and was making his way toward the staircase a boy of about eighteen came toward him from the other end of the first floor corridor. He wasn’t an Academy youth; that fact was apparent even before he spoke. “Say, Buddie, where’s Room 21, huh?” “Next floor. Who do you want?” “Guy name o’ Hollins. ’S he live here?”