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Homans led the team under the bleachers, through a narrow walled-in aisle, to the side entrance, and there gave the word for the varsity to run out upon the field. A hearty roar of applause greeted their appearance. Ken saw a beautiful green field, level as a floor, with a great half-circle of stands and bleachers at one end. One glance was sufficient to make Ken's breathing an effort.

Of all penalties, sending a man down from the 'Varsity for a short time seems to me the most unfair. For some people treat the culprit as if he was almost a criminal, while others are glad to see him and aren't in the least annoyed.

For minutes, while the umpire held play suspended, the Wayne supporters in hoarse and stamping tumult came into their own again. It was a wild burst of applause, and as it had been long delayed, so now it was prolonged fiercely to the limit of endurance. When those waves of sound had rolled away Ken Ward felt a difference in Grant Field, in the varsity, in himself.

He was rushing about, waving his hands, stamping his feet a veritable little cyclone of a coach. "Signal!" he cried sharply. It came from the varsity quarter, and Andy noticed, with a thrill in his heart, that Gaffington was to take the ball. "Here's where I get him!" muttered Andy, fiercely. There was a rush a thud of bodies against bodies gaspings of breaths, the cracking of muscles and sinews.

The babel was hushed, save for the voice of Mills crying: "Steady! Steady! Hold them, varsity!" "44 64 73 81!" came Reardon's muffled voice. Then the second's backs plunged forward. Neil and Gillam met them with a crash; cries and confusion reigned; the lines shoved and heaved; the backs hurled themselves against the swaying group; a smothered voice gasped "Down!" the whistle shrilled.

"It isn't that I'm not tickled to death about getting on the 'varsity," explained Clint to Amy later, "but I'm mighty sorry to leave the second. You see, a fellow gets sort of fond of the team." "Fond!" jeered Amy. "You're positively foolish! It's a wonder you wouldn't go into mourning!"

The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then. Entering as boys do, in the fall of the year, the uppermost thing in mind, outside of the classroom, is football. Sometimes it is the uppermost thought in the classroom. What kind of a Varsity football team are we going to have? This is the question heard on all sides.

Amy, grinning delightedly, reached far across the board where he sat and, pointing at Clint with a baked potato impaled on a fork, announced loudly: "A contretemps, Mr. Thayer, a veritable contretemps!" Clint was blushing when he finally reached the first of the tables occupied by the 'varsity players and found a vacant chair.

My place in the eleven was in doubt until the last game before the 'Varsity match, and then I bowled one of the best batsmen in England I must add off his pads and got three men caught in the slips. Henderson gave me my blue in the pavilion at Lord's and simply banged me on the back as he did it, a very unorthodox and pleasant ending to what had been a great anxiety.

"Bull" Hendricks, the head coach, stamped and stormed and yelled to his charges to "put it over." The things he said may not be set down here, but he gave the recording angel a busy afternoon. His words stung like whips, and under the lash of them the 'Varsity men braced themselves desperately. They burned with shame and rage. Were they to have a defeat "slapped" upon them by the scrubs?