“You can do it yet,” said Dick, encouragingly.
“I’ll make a bluff at it, anyway,” replied the football captain; “but it’s like trying to rush the ball seventy yards in the last ten minutes of the game.”
Phil came in, looked significantly at the clock, and took off his coat.
“Yes, I know it’s time for me to go,” said Curtis, struggling to his feet. “We’re all in training, and ought to be in bed by this time. That was a good game you put up last Saturday.”
Phil looked at him suspiciously.
“Oh, I mean it,” added Curtis. “And you’ll have the crowd with you, too, if you can keep it up. Don’t mind what you hear from Marks and that gang.”
On Thursday Dick came home promptly after supper for a long evening’s pull at his class-day part. Phil was already there.
“Did you see that letter from Cambridge, Dick?” he asked. “I put it on the mantelpiece.”
Melvin took it up carelessly. “From Martin,” he said, glancing at the address. “I wonder what he wants.”
He opened it while Phil stood quietly by, waiting for news of their old school friend. As Melvin read, a tense, serious look came over his face, and he lifted his head instinctively, as if to meet an adversary. After he had finished, he still held the letter in his hand, and sat staring stupidly at the window.