“Oh, of course,” answered the other readily.  “Hadn’t we better turn here?”

The journey back was rather silent.  Neil was struggling with his problem, and Sydney, too, seemed to have something on his mind.  When the town came once more into view around a bend in the road Sydney interrupted Neil’s thoughts.

“Say, Neil, I’ve got a—­a confession to make.”  His cheeks were very red and he looked extremely embarrassed.  Neil viewed him in surprise.

“A confession?  You haven’t murdered the Dean, have you?”

“No.  It—­it’s something rather different.  I don’t believe that it will make any difference in our—­our friendship, but—­it might.”

“It won’t,” said Neil.  “Now, fire ahead.”

“Well, you recollect the day you found me on the way from the field and pushed me back to college?”

“Of course.  Your old ice-wagon had broken down and I—­”

“That’s it,” interrupted Sydney, with a little embarrassed laugh.  “It hadn’t.”

“What hadn’t?  Hadn’t what?”

“The machine; it hadn’t broken down.”

“But I saw it,” exclaimed Neil.  “What do you mean, Syd?”

“I mean that it hadn’t really broken down, Neil.  I—­the truth is I had pried one of the links up with a screw-driver.”

Neil stared in a puzzled way.

“But—­what for?” he asked.

“Don’t you understand?” asked Sydney, shame-faced.  “Because I wanted to know you, and I thought if you found me there with my machine busted you’d try to fix it; and I’d make your acquaintance.  It—­it was awfully dishonest, I know,” muttered Sydney at the last.

Neil stared for a moment in surprise.  Then he clapped the other on the shoulder and laughed uproariously.

“Oh, to think of guileless little Syd being so foxy!” he cried.  “I wouldn’t have believed it if any one else had told me, Syd.”

“Well,” said Sydney, very red in the face, but joining in the laughter, “you don’t mind?”

“Mind?” echoed Neil, becoming serious again, “why of course I don’t.  What is there to mind, Syd?  I’m glad you did it, awfully glad.”  He laid his arm over the shoulders of the lad on the seat.  “Here, let me push a while.  Queer you should have cared that much about knowing me; but—­but I’m glad.”  Suddenly his laughter returned.

“No wonder that old fossil in the village thought it was a queer sort of a break,” he shouted.  “He knew what he was talking about after all when he suggested cold-chisels, didn’t he?”

CHAPTER XVIII

NEIL IS TAKEN OUT

The Tuesday before the final contest dawned raw and wet.  The elms in the yard drip-dripped from every leafless twig and a fine mist covered everything with tiny beads of moisture.  The road to the field, trampled by many feet, was soft and slippery.  Sydney, almost hidden beneath rain-coat and oil-skin hat, found traveling hard work.  Ahead of him marched five hundred students, marshaled by classes, a little army of bobbing heads and flapping mackintoshes, alternately cheering and singing.  Dana, the senior-class president, strode at the head of the line and issued his commands through a big purple megaphone.