fellow got so crazy over athletics that he couldn't study--then the athletics would have to go. And if that made the fellow feel so bad that even then he couldn't study--or wouldn't study--why, then it would be the fellow himself that would have to go. But he meant that more for a joke, I guess; nothing like that's ever happened since he started the school. It's a pretty pig-headed fellow that can't get along with Mr. Fenton. He's got a great way with him, somehow or other; I don't know just how he does it, but he gets lots of fellows interested in studying that you'd think were too lazy even to want to learn the alphabet straight. Oh, I tell you, Randall, he's all right."

Dick nodded. "I'll bet he is," he answered with enthusiasm. He was beginning to feel the genuine esprit de corps; was realizing, for the first time, that a school might be something more than a place where one came merely to "do" one's lessons, and to learn enough to enter college in safety. "Yes," he went on, "that sounds mighty sensible to me. And as you say, Allen, where a man's been an athlete himself, and a scholar, too, why, you can't help feeling a respect for what he thinks about things. I can understand, though, about fellows getting too much interested in athletics. I can see right now where I've got to look out for that, myself. You've seen such a lot of it here that you don't realize how it takes hold of a fellow that's never had any show to go into them. I feel as if I'd like to try everything in sight, if I didn't remember that my father's had to work good and hard to send me here. And he wouldn't care much for cups and medals, I guess. 'Book-learning,' that's what he wants to see me get. Still, I suppose there's time for studying and athletics, too, if a fellow goes at it right."

Allen nodded. "Oh, sure there is," he answered. "And don't get the idea, from what I said, that Mr. Fenton's a crank about it, or that he's the preachy kind, because he isn't. He's keen on physical culture, you know. A fellow's got to take his exercise every day, whether he's a star athlete like Dave, or the worst grind that ever wanted to swallow a Greek dictionary, roots and all. Oh, Mr. Fenton likes exercise, only, as he says, there's a happy medium everywhere--in athletics, just as in everything else. He doesn't want the fellows to underdo; and he doesn't want them to overdo; and he keeps an eye on every boy in the school. He takes just as much pride in having the fellows in good shape physically as he does in having them go into college with honors; and I tell you we don't have much sickness around here. So you needn't worry about exercise; there's no reason why you can't try anything you want. And I should think, to look at you, Randall, you'd make a crack-a-jack at something. How much do you weigh? A hundred and sixty?"

His companion's build, indeed, fully justified his admiration. Randall was strong and sturdy, from much hard work in the open, absolutely healthy, and as rugged and active as a young colt. It was small wonder that Allen, himself a member of the track team, looked him over with an appreciative eye.

Dick flushed with pleasure. "I weigh a little more than that," he answered. "About a hundred and sixty-eight, I guess. That's nothing, though. Think of Ellis."

"Oh, well," returned Allen, "weight isn't everything." Then added, with a smile, "You wouldn't think, to look at me, Randall, that I had any pretensions to being an athlete, now would you? As the song says, 'I'm as thin as the paper on the wall.' I hardly disturb the scales when I weigh myself."

Dick looked at him. "Why, I don't know," he answered frankly, and half-doubtfully, "but I should think, somehow, you look as though you could run pretty well."

Allen laughed. "Good guesser," he rejoined. "You've hit it, first crack. I don't mean, of course, that I'm any good, but running's the only thing I can do anywhere near well. It took a lot of hard work, too. I was certainly a lemon when I started in. But last year I won the quarter in the school games, and I got third in the big meet. So I won my 'F', and that makes a fellow feel good, you know. Shows he's done something for the school."

Dick looked puzzled. "Won your 'F'?" he questioned. "What does that mean, Allen?"

"Why," answered his friend, "if you make the crew, or the nine, or the track team, you get an athletic suit and a sweater. And on the shirt and the sweater there's a big 'F', and a little 'A' on each side of it. A. F. A.--Fenton Athletic Association. The crew fellows get a white sweater, with the letters in red; the nine have gray sweaters, with red letters; and the track team have red sweaters, with the letters in white. And if you're on a winning crew, or a winning nine, you can rip off the 'A. A.' from your sweater, and that leaves just the big 'F', and shows you're a point winner for the school. With the track team, it's a little different, because there it's more a case of every fellow for himself. You can't have the same kind of team work that you can with the nine and the crew. So when the big meet comes for the cup, no matter whether the school wins or not, if you get first, second or third in your event, then you're a point winner, and you've got a right to your 'F'. Now, do you see?"

Dick nodded. "Sure," he answered, "I've got that all straight; but now there's another thing I don't understand. What's the big meet? And what's the cup? You were going to tell me about the cup when we started, and then we got switched off on to something else."

Allen smiled. "I guess 'something else' was Mr. Fenton," he said. "I'm pretty apt to talk people to death about him. I think he's a corker, and I don't mind saying so. I'd rather have him think I was all right than win my 'F,' ten times over, and that's putting it pretty strong, too. Well, about the cup. That's a cinch to explain. It's just like this. There are three schools, you see, right around here, in a kind of ten-mile triangle. There's Clinton Academy and Hopevale and ourselves. We've always had some sort of league with one another, in all kinds of athletics, ever since the schools started, but six or seven years ago the masters and some of the graduates got together, and put things right on a systematic basis. Some rich old chap in New York, who was a graduate of Hopevale, and had a couple of boys in the school, donated a cup--a perfect peach--to be competed for every year until one school won it three times and then it was to be theirs for good. They put five sports on the schedule: foot-ball, base-ball, track and crew, which counted three points each; and the Pentathlon, which counted one. The school that won the most out of those thirteen points held the cup for that year.

"Well, Hopevale made a great start. They had some dandy athletes in the school then--some folks were mean enough to say that was why the old fellow in New York gave the cup--but anyway, however that was, they won, hands down, for two years running. The next year they thought there was nothing to it--they thought they couldn't lose--and I guess they eased up a little, and didn't train quite so hard as they did the other years. Well, they got a surprise all right, for Clinton beat them out. They made six points that year, to four for Hopevale, and three for us. And then, the year after that, Dave Ellis entered school, and we had our turn. We got so, with Dave at full-back, we never thought about the three points in foot-ball at all--we figured them just like money in the bank--all we used to wonder about, was how big the score was going to be. And then, in the spring sports, we had Mansfield pitching on the nine, and Harrison stroking the crew, and of course Dave came in strong again on the track. Oh, we had things easy for the next two years. The second year we won all thirteen points--made a clean sweep of everything. So we began to get