“Yes, I remember,” answered Neil, smiling.  “We had rather a good time, didn’t we, at Seabright?  It was awfully nice of you to ask me down there, Paul; and your folks were mighty good to me.  Next summer I want you to come up to New Hampshire and see us for a while.  Of course, we can’t give you sea bathing, and you won’t look like a red Indian when you go home, but we could have a good time just the same.”

“Red Indian yourself!” cried Paul.  “You’re nearly twice as tanned as I am.  I don’t see how you did it.  I was there pretty near all summer and you stayed just three weeks; and look at us!  I’m as white as a sheet of paper—­”

“Yes, brown paper,” interpolated Neil.

“And you have a complexion like a—­a football after a hard game.”

Neil grinned, then—­

“By the way,” he said, “did I tell you I’d heard from Crozier?”

“About Billy and the ducks?  And Gordon’s not going back to Hillton?  Yes, you got that at the beach; remember?”

“So I did.  ‘Old Cro’ will be up to his ears in trouble pretty soon, won’t he?  I’m glad they made him captain, awfully glad.  I think he can turn out a team that’ll rub it into St. Eustace again just as you did last year.”

“Yes; and Gardiner’s going to coach again.”  Paul smiled reminiscently.  Then, “By Jove, it does seem funny not to be going back to old Hillton, doesn’t it?  I suppose after a while a fellow’ll get to feeling at home here, but just at present—­” He sighed and shook his head.

“Wait until college opens to-morrow and we get to work; we won’t have much time to feel much of anything, I guess.  Practise is called for four o’clock.  I wonder—­I wonder if we’ll make the team?”

“Why not?” objected Paul.  “If I thought I wouldn’t I think I’d pitch it all up and—­and go to Robinson!” He grinned across at his chum.

“You stay here and you’ll get a chance to go at Robinson; that’s a heap more satisfactory.”

“Well, I’m going to make the varsity, Neil.  I’ve set my heart on that, and what I make up my mind to do I sometimes most always generally do.  I’m not troubling, my boy; I’ll show them a few tricks about playing half-back that’ll open their eyes.  You wait and see!”

Neil looked as though he was not quite certain as to that, but said nothing, and Paul went on: 

“I wonder what sort of a fellow this Devoe is?”

“Well, I’ve never seen him, but we know that he’s about as good an end as there is in college to-day; and I guess he’s bound to be the right sort or they wouldn’t have made him captain.”

“He’s a senior, isn’t he?”

“Yes; he’s played only two years, and they say he’s going into the Yale Law School next year.  If he does, of course he’ll get on the team there.  Well, I hope he’ll take pity on two ambitious but unprotected freshmen and—­”

There was a knock at the study door and Paul jumped forward and threw it open.  A tall youth of twenty-one or twenty-two years of age stood in the doorway.