Sitting on the stage to be admired was a little uncomfortable, Hugh thought, even though he and Bert secured chairs in the third row and were not much in evidence from the floor. As on previous occasions of the kind, the Mandolin and Banjo Club did its best――and sometimes it sounded like its worst!――speeches were made, cheers were given and songs were sung. To the delight of everyone, the prophetic Joe Leslie, senior class president, predicted a Grafton victory, although he warned his hearers that the team would have to work for it and that its margin of points would be scanty. Joe could talk to the fellows in what Vail, who sat at Hugh’s other side, called “words of one syllabub,” and he was always a big success as a speaker. Tonight he had his audience with him from the first moment and before he was through had worked them up to such a stage of enthusiasm that they threatened to lift the roof off the building. When the meeting was over the football players disappeared quickly, for tonight and tomorrow night they were supposed to be in bed by ten o’clock, and, lest they be disturbed, all noise in rooms or corridors after that hour was taboo. Hugh, who had been noticeably distrait all the evening save when Joe Leslie’s eloquence had absorbed him, piled promptly into bed, beating the clock by ten minutes. Bert was disposed toward conversation, but found scant encouragement from his chum, and at ten all lights were out in Number 29. Bert was just falling into a delicious state of drowsiness when a sound from the opposite bedroom brought him back to consciousness and he sat up suddenly. It seemed to him that Hugh had said “That’s it!” very loudly. However, as all was silent, he concluded that he had dreamed it, and so sank back again and went to sleep. The next forenoon, clad in a yellow slicker, since it was drizzling, Hugh inconspicuously let himself out the service door on the basement floor of Lothrop, climbed two fences, cut across a corner of a meadow, and finally, a bit wet as to lower extremities, reached the village road and trudged off into the mist. He was back a half-hour later, in time for French, and, so far as he knew, his absence was passed unnoticed.