“Too bad,” said Sam.  “Did you have much of value in it?”

“Not a great deal.  Most of my stuff is in my trunk.  But the case alone was worth six dollars, and it had my comb and brush and toothbrush and all those things in it.”

“Want me any more?” asked Mr. Sanderson.  “If you don’t, I’ll get home.  It’s past milking time now.”

“No, I’ll not need you,” answered Tom and hopped to the ground.  A minute later the farmer turned his team around and was gone in a cloud of dust.

Tom was introduced to Stanley and Max, and the whole crowd walked slowly back to the college grounds.  Then Tom was taken to his room, the others going up-stairs with him.  He washed and brushed up, went to the office and registered, and then the bell rang for supper.

The dining hall at Brill was a more elaborate affair than the messroom at Putnam Hall, but the Rovers were used to dining out in fine places, so they felt perfectly at home.  Dick and Sam had already met the instructor who had charge of their table, Mr. Timothy Blackie, and they introduced Tom.  Stanley and Max were at the same table and also a long-haired youth named Will Jackson, although his friends called him “Spud.”

“I don’t know why they call me Spud,” he said to Dick, “excepting because I like potatoes so.  I’d rather eat them than any other vegetable.  Why, when I was out in Jersey one summer, on a farm, I ate potatoes morning, noon and night and sometimes between times.  The farmer said I had better look out or I’d sprout.  I guess I ate about ’steen bushels in three weeks.”

“Phew!” whistled Sam.  “That’s a good one.”

“Oh, it’s a fact,” went on Spud.  “Why, one night I got up in my sleep and they found me down in the potato bin, filling my coat pockets with potatoes, and—­”

“Filling your coat pocket?” queried Stanley.  “Do you sleep with your coat on?”

“Why, I—­er—­I guess I did that night,” answered Will Jackson in some confusion.  “Anyway, I’m a great potato eater,” he added lightly.  Later on the others found out that Spud had a vivid imagination and did not hesitate to “draw the long bow” for the sake of telling a good story.

The meal was rather a stiff and quiet one among the new students, but the old scholars made the room hum with talk about what had happened at the previous term.  There was a good bit of conversation concerning the last season of baseball and more about the coming work on the gridiron.  From the talk the Rovers gathered that Brill belonged to something of a league composed of several colleges situated in that territory, and that they had held the football championship four and three seasons before, but had lost it to one of the colleges the next season and to another college the season just past.

“Football hits me,” said Dick to Stanley.  “I’d like to play first-rate.”

“Maybe you’ll get a chance on the eleven, although I suppose they give the older students the preference,” was the reply.