But we are too far afield, for our present destination is that of the three boys whom we left crossing the campus. At one corner of the green, where River and School Streets intersect, stood two old-fashioned white dwelling houses. The one nearer River Street had been just there when the land was bought by the School, but the second had stood at the other end of the green and had been moved to its present location to make room for tennis courts. When, however, a few years later, Lothrop Field had been presented to the School the tennis courts were transferred thither and now, save for the two white-clapboarded, many-dormered houses, the green was only a pleasant, shady expanse of close-cropped sward. The old houses, used now as dormitories since the buildings in the campus failed to meet the requirements of the ever-increasing student body, still retained the names of their former owners. The larger one, nearer the side street, was known as Morris House, the other as Fuller. At a few minutes before six this afternoon the front steps and the adjacent turf――there was no such thing as a porch or piazza on either dwelling――were sprinkled with boys. There seemed to be at least two dozen of them. As a matter of fact, until Ted, Bert and Nick joined them, they numbered exactly seventeen. In age they varied from sixteen to twenty, although only one of them, John Driver, commonly known as “Pop,” had attained the latter age. Pop was, as he laughingly explained it, “doing the four-year course in six.” That was a slight exaggeration, for Pop had been at Grafton only four years, was now a senior and would undoubtedly be graduated next June whether he was willing or not! He was big and slow; slow to move, slow to speak and slow to anger. He played right guard in a steady, highly-satisfactory if not brilliant fashion. Since this was Tuesday, the fellows who had gathered from various and, in some instances, distant parts of the country for early football practice, had been at Grafton six days. Those six days had been busy ones. There had been morning and afternoon sessions on each day and the weather had been almost unreasonably hot. More than one of the candidates showed the result of those strenuous days in his tired face and fagged movements. Not one of the twenty who had been bidden had, however, failed to respond. Those summons meant a week less of vacation time and an added week of hard labor, but it also meant honor, for only the most likely of last year’s first and second players had been called on. While the fellows were occupying their rooms in the dormitories, neither of the big dining halls in Lothrop and Manning were open and so they were being served with meals at Morris where, in a room and at a table designed to accommodate only the dozen or fourteen residents of the two houses, they were packed in like sardines in a box.