“He’s about at the gate now,” added Clint as they hurried down the stairs.  “We’ll give him plenty of time, because we don’t want to meet him until he’s half-way back.  I knew he’d bite at that registered parcel.”  Amy chuckled.  “He couldn’t even wait until noon!”

Fifteen minutes later Harmon Dreer, returning from the post office, spied ahead of him, loitering in the direction of the Academy, two boys of whom one looked at the distance of a block away very much like the obnoxious Byrd.  For choice, Dreer would have avoided Amy on general principles, but in this case he had no chance, for, unless he climbed a fence and took to the fields, there was no way for him to reach school without proceeding along the present road.  Neither was it advisable to dawdle, for he had Greek at ten o’clock, it was now twelve minutes of and “Uncle Sim” had scant patience with tardy students.  There was nothing for it but to hurry along, but the fact didn’t improve his temper, which was already bad.  To walk three-quarters of a mile in the expectation of getting a valuable registered parcel and then discover on opening it that it contained only two folded copies of a daily newspaper was enough to sour anyone’s disposition!  And that is what had happened to Dreer.  Someone, of course, had played a silly joke on him, but he couldn’t imagine who, nor did he for a moment connect Byrd’s appearance on the scene with the registered parcel.  When he reached the two ahead he saw that one was Byrd, as he had thought, and the other Thayer.  They were so deeply in conversation that he was almost past before they looked up.  When they did Dreer nodded.

“Hi, fellows,” he murmured, without, however, decreasing his pace.

“Hi, Dreer!” responded Amy, and Thayer echoed him.  “Say, you’re just the fellow to settle this,” Amy continued.

“Settle what?” asked Dreer, pausing unwillingly.

“Why, Clint says—­By the way, you know Thayer, don’t you?”

Dreer nodded and Amy went on.

“Well, Clint says that Claflin played two fellows on her team last year who weren’t eligible.  What were their names, Clint?”

“Ainsmith and Kenney,” replied Clint unhesitatingly.

“Ainsmith!” exclaimed Dreer.  “Kenney!  Say, you don’t know what you’re talking about, Thayer!”

“That’s what I told him,” said Amy eagerly.  “They were all right, weren’t they?  Clint says that last year was their first at Claflin and that they didn’t have any right to play on the team.”

“Rot!  Ainsmith’s been at Claflin two years and Kenney three.  Where’d you get that dope, Thayer?”

“I heard it and I think I’m right,” said Clint stubbornly.

“You can’t be,” persisted Amy.  “Dreer went to Claflin last year, and he knows, don’t you, Dreer?”

“Of course I know!  Besides, Claflin doesn’t do that sort of thing, Thayer.  It doesn’t have to!  You’d better turn over; you’re on your back!”