Clif and Tom found themselves in the squad under Mr. Hilliard and put in nearly an hour passing the ball and receiving it. There were frequent rests, for the day was hot and most of the squad were soft with easy living, but the work was hard enough to cause more than one erstwhile ambitious youth to wonder whether it wouldn’t be wiser to seek glory in some other less strenuous pursuit. Even Clif, who had sought to keep himself conditioned during the summer, was soon perspiring freely and was both surprised and a trifle dismayed to find himself puffing. It was evident to him that his system of summer training had not been a success. Looking back, he realized that he had spent more time on the hotel porch or lolling on the sand than he had meant to! Mr. Hilliard was called “Pinky” because his hair was coppery-brown. It didn’t approach red, but since no other faculty member presented a better claim to the nickname it was awarded to Mr. Hilliard. He was about thirty years old, Clif concluded. He was fairly tall and thin, with a peculiar quick manner of moving his head; sort of jerky, as Clif phrased it to himself; like a hen’s! Practice ended with a single lap around the inner border of the running track. It nearly finished Clif, and he ended the circuit at a slow walk. Tom poked fun at him as they returned to the gymnasium, and Clif was much too short of breath to make any defense. So ended the first day. The second wasn’t much different. There was more long passing and they practiced starts, but getting acquainted with the ball was the principal desideratum, just as yesterday. Both Clif and Tom slightly resented being treated as members of the kindergarten class, although acknowledging that it probably wouldn’t do them any harm. Mr. Otis, who had the first squad in charge, found time to look over the others occasionally, and at such times Mr. Hilliard’s pupils sought pathetically hard to attract the coach’s favorable notice. Or most of them did. Tom, for some reason not quite plain to Clif, resented the infrequent visits of “G.G.” Once, seeing the head coach’s approach, Tom, at the receiving end of a ten-yard pass, opened his arms wide as the ball came to him and made a most ridiculously amateurish effort at catching. The ball went through, bounded from his body and trickled across the turf. Tom affected deep chagrin and followed it. He picked it up a few yards from Mr. Otis and then looked at him invitingly. The coach returned the look for a moment. Then he said: “Your left shoe lace is trailing. Fix it.” Tom sped the ball across vindictively. In a pause he said to Clif: “Did you hear him? Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to like that guy?” Clif laughed and then sobered. “What did you want to do that for, anyway? Just to show off?” “Why, heck,” answered the other indignantly, “a fellow can’t catch it every time!”