A dozen interested spectators wore very broad smiles and there were chuckles when Mr. Cade replied: “Exactly, Lovell. You’re not to part with it for a moment except when you’re asleep. Then the ball rests beside you. You might put it on a chair at the head of your bed. You see, Lovell, the idea is to accustom yourself to the sight and feel of it so that you’ll know what to do with it if you run across it in a game.” Conscious of the joyous amusement of those who had lingered for the ceremony, Bus put on a good face. “Very well, sir,” he answered as seriously as Mr. Cade had spoken, “I’ll certainly hang on to it.” He put it under an arm and strode off, followed by the group of hilarious team-mates. His appearance in dining hall that evening was the signal for a deal of razzing. Warned of his approach, the fellows clapped enthusiastically as he stepped through the door with the football swinging in one hand from the lacing. For an instant Bus was nonplused, but then, composing his countenance, he placed the ball under an arm and made his way gravely along the aisle. The honors might have been his if some wag hadn’t started patting a foot in time to Bus’s tread. That set them all going, and poor Bus paced the length of the hall to the rhythmic _tramp-tramp_ of hundreds of feet. After that every one gave way to laughter and the commotion continued until Mr. Kincaid, in charge, arose and calmed it. Bus’s troubles hadn’t ended, though, for it at once became a matter of duty on the part of his companions to deprive him of his treasure. If Bus laid the football beside his plate some one reached around behind him and sent it wobbling among the viands. If he placed it in his lap it was instantly bobbing around under the table, being kicked this way and that, or was out in the aisle endangering the safety of passing trays. If he held on to it with both hands he couldn’t eat! Bus began to suspect that the thing was less of a joke than he had surmised. At least so far as he was concerned. During the evening, if he laid the ball down for an instant it mysteriously disappeared, and he learned that eternal vigilance was the price of peace. He finally solved the difficulty by tying a cord through the lacing and hanging the pesky thing around his neck.