“You! Bet it was something you’d eaten then,” jeered Bert. “You’ve got about as much--as much whatever it is as a goat!” “Is that so? I’ll have you understand that I’m a man of very delicate--er--susceptibilities. Highly strung, nervous, you know. Temperamental! That’s the old word I wanted.” “Put your coat on and let’s get over to supper,” said Bert. “You’re saying things that don’t mean anything!” CHAPTER IV THE MANAGER GIVES A PARTY Coles Wistar’s room in Lykes, which he shared with Ted Ball, First Team quarter-back, looked full to capacity when Chick and Bert arrived there that Monday evening. Once inside, however, accommodations of a sort could be discerned, and Chick crowded onto a bed and Bert squeezed in between Anstruther and Tommy Parish on the window-seat. Coles Wistar was Football Manager, and it was largely a football crowd which was present. There were George Anstruther, familiarly “Judge,” and Billy Pillsbury, assistant managers, Ted Ball, Hank Howard, Pete Ness, Jim Galvin and Nip Storer, all of the Team. Tommy Parish was present because Pill had brought him and no one had yet thrown him out. Homer Johnson, who roomed with Captain Lowe, had brought Jonas’s regrets and remained to partake of hospitality. These, with the host, Chick and Bert, formed the party, a round dozen in all. Lykes Hall, reserved for the Senior Class Students, held fewer rooms than the other dormitories, but, fortunately for Coles’ party, they were larger than the rooms in Haylow or Upton or Borden, the latter the Freshman domicile. Number 5 was well-furnished and attractive, for Coles had excellent taste in such matters. There was a refreshing lack of school and college pennants on the walls, this style of decoration being represented by a single Alton banner hung above the double windows. There were a good many pictures, most of them etchings, of which Coles was a modest collector, a few framed photographs and one lone trophy on the walls. The latter, placed above a closet door, was a wooden panel some three feet long with a black, sanded background against which gilt letters startlingly announced “EASTBOUND TRAINS.” It was a memento of Ted Ball’s unregenerate freshman days, and although it had always grated against Coles’ artistic sensibilities he had never been able to persuade Ted to remove it. Ted acknowledged that it might be a jarring note in the decorative scheme, but he had annexed that trophy under extremely difficult circumstances, braving arrest and, possibly, penal servitude, and, although nowadays self-condemnatory in his explanation of its presence here, he was secretly very proud of it. Ted was a rather stocky, bright-eyed chap of eighteen, fun-loving and extremely popular at Alton. He was equally brilliant at studies and as a quarter-back, a shining example to his team-mates which, unfortunately, not many emulated.