“I meant I’d help,” answered Neil unabashed.

“Help!  Huh!  Lot’s of help, you’d be to any one!  Well, let’s see it.”  He knelt and inspected the tricycle, grumbling all the while and shaking his head angrily.  “Who said it was broke?” he demanded presently.  “Queer kind of break; looks like you’d pried the link apart with a cold-chisel.”

“Well, I didn’t; nor with a hot chisel.  Besides, I’ve just told you it didn’t belong to me.  Do I look like a cripple?”

“More like a fool,” answered the other with a chuckle.

“You’re a naughty old man,” said Neil sorrowfully, “and if you were my father I’d spank you.”  The other was too angry to find words, and contented himself with bending back the damaged link and emitting a series of choking sounds which Neil rightly judged to be expressions of displeasure.  When the repair was finished he pushed the machine angrily toward the boy.

“Take it and get out,” he said.

“Thanks.  How much?”

“Fifty cents,” was the reply, given with a toothless grin and a chuckle.  “Twenty-five cents for the job and twenty-five cents for working after hours.”

“Cheap enough,” answered Neil, laying a quarter on the bench.  “That’s for the job; I’ll owe you the rest.”

When he reached the first corner the proprietor of the repair-shop was still calling him names and shaking his fist in the air.

“Looked just like a he-witch or something,” chuckled Neil, as he propelled his steed toward the campus.  “Maybe he will put a curse upon me and my right foot will wither up and I won’t be able to kick goals!”

CHAPTER X

NEIL MAKES THE VARSITY

On the 12th of October, Woodby College sent a team of light but very fast football players to Erskine with full determination to bring back the pigskin.  And it very nearly succeeded.  It was the first game of the season for Erskine, but Woodby had already played two, and was consequently rather more hardened.  The first half ended with the score 6 to 6, and the spectators, fully three hundred supporters of the Purple, looked glum.  Neil and Paul were given their chance in the second half, taking the places of Gillam and Smith.  Many other changes were made, among them one which installed the newly discovered Browning at left guard vice Carey, removed to the bench.

There was no use in attempting to disguise the fact that Woodby literally played all around the home team.  Her backs gained almost at will on end runs, and her punting was immeasurably superior.  Foster, the Erskine quarter-back, sent kick after kick high into the air, and twenty yards was his best performance.  On defense Woodby was almost equally strong, and had Erskine not outweighted her in the line some five pounds per man, would have forced her to kick every time.  As it was, the purple-clad backs made but small and infrequent gains through the line, and very shortly found that runs outside of tackle or end were her best cards, even though, as was several times the case, her runners were nailed back of her line for losses.