actually held it the proper thing to work on lessons, and while they pretended to make light of low marks, at bottom despised a numskull. Can we wonder, then, that the disdain with which Dunn first regarded his quiet housemate, Hardie, should have turned to envy? That afternoon Roger went down town with McDowell to buy their football hatbands—a white background striped three times with blue, the outer stripes wide, the inner one narrow. McDowell took his hat off as they emerged from the shop, and gave the new decoration a long look of admiration, regardless of the jostling crowd. “It’s not so pretty as the crew band that Pete wears,” he said slowly, “but I’d a lot rather have it. It means something.” “So does the crew mean something,” answered Roger. “It means more than any band there is. Only a few fellows can get it, and at least a dozen can sport football bands.—Put on your dip, you lunatic. They’ll think you’re crazy!” Mac replaced his hat, pressing it down carefully on his hair, and giving the brim a downward tilt. “The second crew get bands if they win their race,” he said; “that’s eight, and the two coxswains make ten.” “But they don’t all get crew W’s. Only five fellows in the school have a right to them. I’d rather wear a band as a member of the first crew, if it were just one dirty yellow streak, than have both baseball and football combined.” Mac laughed. “Why don’t you, then? All you have to do is to make the crew.” “You can’t make the crew just by coming out for it. You’ve got to know how to row, and it takes lots of practice to learn. There isn’t any chance for an inexperienced man, with six or eight old fellows in school who have all had a year or more of it.” “Isn’t there?” answered Mac, absently. He was looking about him at the faces hurrying past, wondering that no one seemed to mark the significant symbol that he bore. Just then a small boy in knickerbockers and light top-coat, wearing a flat hat with white band edged with blue—the regular Westcott hatband—appeared in front of them. He caught sight of the new bands, glanced at the faces below, smiled, and, stopping short in the crowd, fixed his gaze upon them, revolving in his tracks as they passed. Here was one who knew the token. It is ever thus. The small boy looks up with veneration to the wearer of the school letter. The school athlete admires the member of a freshman team; the freshman adores the varsity captain who has so long worn the stately letter that it has quite lost its glamor. The varsity captain thinks chiefly of the task which he has taken upon his shoulders, and admires only some lucky captain before him who won his race or his Yale game, or some frail, pretty, unathletic girl whose weakness her schoolboy brother flouts. So the chain is looped. “Who was that?” asked Roger. “Stanley Hale,” answered Mac, with a grin. “The football band is good enough for him.—But why isn’t your chance for the crew as good as any one’s? Pete’s a friend of yours.”