However, none minded that so long as there was plenty of food on the dishes and plenty of milk in the big pitchers. Mr. Bonner, the coach, arrived just as the crowd had squeezed themselves to the two tables and had begun their onslaught. Somehow he didn’t look quite like the popular conception of a football coach. He was of only medium size and height and had the preoccupied expression of a business man with his mind on the day’s sales. In age he was twenty-eight or -nine, had a somewhat narrow face, brown hair and eyes and wore a closely-trimmed mustache that was several shades lighter than his hair. The reason for the mustache was apparent when, on close observation, what seemed at first to be a natural crease running from one corner of his mouth was seen to be a deep, white scar. The mustache didn’t hide the whole of that scar but it concealed the most of it. David Bonner had acquired it in a certain hard-fought game when he was playing end in his junior year at Amherst, and there was a story at Grafton to the effect that his opponent in that contest had subsequently fared much worse than Mr. Bonner had. However, as the coach was a remarkably even-tempered man, that may have been merely an invention of someone’s imagination. Supper proceeded with as much and probably no more noise than is usual when twenty fairly hungry youths are left to their own devices at table. There was a good deal of loud talk, some far from silent mastication, much rattling and clashing of dishes and, it is not to be denied, some horse-play toward the end of the meal. Two capable if not over-neat waitresses flitted in and out and did their best to supply the demands on the kitchen. Now and then Coach Bonner’s voice was raised in warning, but for the most part that gentleman attended closely to the business of consuming his supper, and it was not until cold rice pudding had appeared as the final course that he entered into the conversation to any extent. By that time many of the fellows, having either picked the raisins from their portion of the dessert or engulfed it with the aid of much milk and sugar, had moved back from the tables to loll more comfortably half in, half off their chairs. The four windows were wide open and a slight breeze was swaying the curtain-cords, but the heat of the day still lingered. “I’ll trouble you for the milk, Willard,” said the coach, eyeing his pudding with but slight enthusiasm. “Thanks. Traf, I’ve been thinking that maybe it would be well to cut out practise tomorrow. You fellows have been at it pretty hard and this weather is trying. I thought it might be cooler tomorrow, but that sunset says not. What do you think?” “Oh, we ought to be able to stand a little work in the morning, if we don’t do any in the afternoon. Still, it’s just as you like, Coach. It is awfully hot for football, and that’s a fact.” “Have a heart, Ted!” implored Derry.