He pressed her foot under the table. He was chatty, and helped to keep the general conversation away from the Frazer affair; but he was growing more and more angry, with a desire for effective action which expressed itself within him only by, "I'll show 'em! Makes me so _sore_!" * * * * * Everywhere they discussed and rediscussed Professor Frazer: in the dressing-room of the gymnasium, where the football squad dressed in the sweat-reeking air and shouted at one another, balancing each on one leg before small lockers, and rubbing themselves with brown, unclean Turkish towels; in the neat rooms of girl co-eds with their banners and cushions and pink comforters and chafing-dishes of nut fudge and photographic postal-cards showing the folks at home; in the close, horse-smelling, lap-robe and whip scattered office of the town livery-stable, where Mr. Goff droned with the editor of the _Times_. Everywhere Carl heard the echoes, and resolved, "I've got to _do_ something!" CHAPTER IX The day of Professor Frazer's next lecture, a rain-sodden day at the end of October, with the stubble-fields bleakly shelterless beyond the campus. The rain splashed up from pools on the worn brick walks and dripped from trees and whipped about buildings, soaking the legs and leaving them itchingly wet and the feet sloshily uncomfortable. Carl returned to his room at one; talked to the Turk, his feet thrust against the side of their rusty stove. He wanted to keep three o'clock, the hour of Frazer's lecture, from coming. "I feel as if I was in for a fight and scared to death about it. Listen to that rain outside. Gee! but the old dame keeps these windows dirty. I hope Frazer will give it to them good and hard. I wish we could applaud him. I do feel funny, like something tragic was going to happen." "Oh, tie that dog outside," yawned the Turk, stanch adherent of Carl, and therefore of Professor Frazer, but not imaginative. "Come on, young Kerl; I'll play you a slick little piece on the mouth-organ. Heh?" "Oh, thunder! I'm too restless to listen to anything except a cannon." Carl stumped to the window and pondered on the pool of water flooding the graying grass stems in the shabby yard. When it was time to start for Professor Frazer's lecture the Turk blurted: "Why don't we stay away and forget about it? Get her off your nerves. Let's go down to the bowling-alley and work up a sweat." "Not a chance, Turk. He'll want all the supporters he's got. And you'd hate to stay away as much as I would. I feel cheered up now; all ready for the scrap. Yip! Come on!" "All right, governor. I like the scrap, all right, but I don't want to see you get all worked up."