“Where were you yesterday?”

“In my room, sir.  I had—­”

“Sick?”

“No, sir, I wanted to—­”

“Anyone tell you you might cut practice?”

“No, sir, I didn’t know—­”

“Never mind what you knew or didn’t know.  You know now that if you stay away again without permission you’ll get dropped.  That’s all.”

Clint returned to the bench contentedly.  After all he was, it seemed, not such an unimportant unit as he had supposed!  Later he discovered that Tyler was not present and hoped so hard that he would fall heir to that disabled player’s position on the second squad that he fell under the disfavour of the third squad quarter-back and was twice called down for missing signals.

And then, when, finally, the first and second lined up for a twenty-minute scrimmage, he saw the coveted place again filled by the substitute half-back and found himself sitting, blanket-wrapped, on the bench!

Tracey Black, catching his eye between periods, smiled sympathetically.  Tracey could have told him that Coach Robey was punishing him for yesterday’s misdemeanour, but he didn’t, and the explanation didn’t occur to Clint.  And the latter followed the rest back to the gymnasium after practice was over, feeling very dejected, and was such poor company all evening that Amy left him in disgust at nine and sought more cheerful scenes.

CHAPTER V

ON THE SECOND

At the end of a fortnight Clint had, so to speak, become a regular student of Brimfield Academy in good standing.  That is, he had learned the manners and customs and the language, for Brimfield, like every similar institution, had its own ways and its own speech.  Clint no longer said “Hello!” or “How do you do?” on meeting an acquaintance.  He said “Hi!” and threw his head back with a little jerk.  He bought a diminutive grey cap with a small visor and wore it so far on the back of his head that it was not discernible from the front. (If you belonged on one of the teams you wore your insignia in maroon above the visor, or, if you had won two “B’s,” you wore a maroon cap instead and the insignia was in grey.  But Clint hadn’t come to that yet.) He offhandedly referred to the Principal as “Josh,” to the instructors as “Horace” or “Uncle Sim” or “Jordy,” as the case might be.  He knew that a Hall Master was an “H.M.”; that he and one hundred and seventy-one other youths were, in common parlance, “Brims”; that a “Silk Sock” was a student of Claflin School, Brimfield’s athletic rival; that Wendell Hall was “Wen”; Torrence, “T”; Hensey, “Hen” or “The Coop,” and Billings, “Bill.”  Also that an easy course, such as Bible History, was a “doze”; that to study was to “stuff”—­one who made a specialty of it being, consequently, a “stuffer”; that a boy who prided himself on athletic prowess was a “Greek”; that a recitation was a “recit”; that the recitation rooms were “cells,” and many other important things.