In his own way he was a fighter. And genius for goalkeeping stood to him, as Ginger had been confident it would. In the first minute of the game he gathered a hot one cleverly, got rid of it before the enemy could down him, and from that moment he had no further dread of losing his nerve. "What did I tell yer, Dink?" said Ginger with an air of restrained triumph. "That young feller plays for England one o' these fine afternoons." This was a bold statement, yet not unsanctioned in high places. That evening the Sailor was summoned to the Presence, and was offered a contract for another season with a promised rise if he continued to do well. The months which followed meant much to Henry Harper. In many respects they were the best of his life. It was a time of dawning hope, of coming enlargement, of slow-burgeoning wisdom. During those golden summer mornings in which he wandered in the more or less vernal meadows engirdling the city, latent, unsuspected forces began to awake. Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, he craved continually. Every fresh victory won in an enchanted field was a lighted torch in the Sailor's soul. He knew that the playing of football was but a means to an end. It gave him leisure, opportunity, wherewithal for things infinitely more important. During those months of his awakening, his desire became a passion. There were whole vast continents in the mind of man, that he could never hope to traverse. There was no limit to the vista opened up by those supreme arts of man's invention, the twin and cognate arts of reading and writing. Knowledge is power. That statement had been made quite recently by his already well-beloved Blackhampton _Evening Star_. With his own eyes he had been able to read that declaration. Its truth had thrilled him. He was making such progress now that he could read the newspaper almost as well as Ginger himself. He no longer dreaded the unmasking of his guilty secret because he no longer had one to unmask. Of course he had not Ginger's ease and facility; to tackle a leading article was a task of Hercules, but give him time and Marlow's Dictionary--Miss Foldal had marked his diligence by the gift of her own private copy--and he need not fear any foe in black and white. September came, and with it football again. And from the first match it was seen that Sailor Harper, which was the name the whole town called him now, had taken a long stride to the front. By the end of that month his place in the first team was secure, and his fame was in the mouth of everybody. For many years, in Mr. Augustus Higginbottom's judgment--and there could be none higher--the one need of the Blackhampton Rovers had been a goalkeeper of Class. They had one now. The Sailor was performing miracles in every match, and Ginger, his mentor, was going about with a permanent expression of, "What did I tell yer?" upon a preternaturally sharp and freckled countenance.