“I don’t mean falling bodies, I mean about the cup!” Fluffy got this out in the face of a storm that threatened to sweep him the whole length of the railing. No one wanted to hear a debate between Fluffy Dobbs and Wilmot on the laws of falling bodies. “It’s clear enough,” said Sumner. “There are three sports that count, football, baseball, and crew. Whoever wins two of them gets the cup for a year. The school that gets it three times has it to keep.” “Do you understand that, Fluffy?” called Wilmot. “Because if you don’t, we’ll get you a map and a guide-book.” “But supposing each of the three schools wins at one sport?” proposed Fluffy, undisturbed by Wilmot’s jeers, to which he was evidently well accustomed. “No score!” returned Sumner, quickly. “Are they going to have special crew races with Newbury and Trowbridge?” asked Tracy. “No, we all row in the Interscholastic.” “Then the first thing for us to do is to win at football,” said Trask. “It’s up to you fellows to start the thing right.” “Easy enough for you to say when you don’t play,” said a tall, wiry, light-haired boy who up to this time had been listening in silence. “Give us the material, and we’ll do it. We can’t make bricks without straw.” Harrison was captain of the eleven. “Oh, yes, you can, only it’s harder. A really good captain could make a team out of ’most anything. Any fool captain can win with a bunch of stars.” Wilmot’s significant grin disarmed this seemingly insulting remark of all its sting. Everybody respected Eliot Harrison, and Wilmot enjoyed a liberty of his own. “The lot we had out yesterday was more like a flock of goats than a bunch of stars,” growled Pete. “A goat ought to be mighty good in the centre of the line,” said Wilmot, reflectively. “He could butt a hole right through the other side, and that’s about all guard and centre have to do. Now if you could only get a few good butting goats into the line—” “Or teach your own goats to butt,” suggested Tracy. Wilmot slammed the table. “That’s the best idea yet! Get a goat as assistant coach, a good old side-hill, can-eating, whiskered billy that’s practiced butting from his youth up. He’d show the line how to open holes!” The audience warmed noisily to Wilmot’s proposition. “He’d look fine on the side-lines, wouldn’t he?” This sarcastic comment came from sober-faced little Stanley Hale of the sixth, whose class, by the necessities of the school schedule, shared the recess hour of the older boys. The influence of the kindergarten and the fairy tale was still effective in Stanley’s mind. Ideas still translated themselves for his intelligence into pictures, and the picture of the goat stood out vividly before him. “He could be a mascot, Stan,” said Sumner, turning to smile at Stanley. “He’d be a great help in the cheering,” went on Wilmot. “The sixth could give him lessons. He’d cheer bass to their soprano.”