“Isn’t this a new racket?” asked Max, pouncing on it as soon as it appeared.
“New in August,” answered Harry proudly. “I won it in a tournament at Lenox. There were about a dozen of us played, and I took it in doubles. Leon took the first prize in singles, though, and he was one of the smallest that played.”
“Good for you, young Arnold,” said Paul. “You are the fellow for Flemming, if you like that kind of thing. What can you do in football?”
“A little of everything,” replied Leon, with his head in his trunk as he wrestled with a pile of books. “I’ve played centre rush for the little fellows and quarter back for the large ones.”
“You ought to see him get over the ground, though,” remarked Harry, in a confidential aside to Jack Howard. “He’s fine in an end play, and a first-class man for almost any place you want to put him. What’s the prospect for the season?” he went on, turning to Paul.
“The second team is a strong one, for the juniors have some splendid men, and the new fellows are a good-looking set. We are only fair, now Williams has gone and Brewster has strained his knee and can’t play. Stan is to play quarter back on second, and Louis and Osborn are half backs. There isn’t anybody in the second class to help us out, unless your brother is there. Where are you going to be, Leon?”
“I don’t know yet; second, I think. Lieutenant Wilde is going to tell me to-night,” answered Leon who, at the beginning of the football discussion, had abandoned his unpacking and seated himself on the table with his feet on the edge of his open trunk.
“I hope you will, for Hal seems to think you would be a good man, and our first team is decidedly weak,” said Jack, uncoiling his long legs and straightening his shoulders.
“How can I get first team, if I am only second class?” inquired Leon. “I thought I could only get on second.”
“We used to divide up according to our playing, but that let the games all end the same way. Then we took juniors and seniors against firsts and seconds, and that wasn’t much fairer, for it put all the little fellows against the big ones. Now we have juniors and firsts against seniors and seconds, so it’s a little more even. We have our great game of the year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and we begin training next week. I’m captain of the first, and if you are a good man, I want you, even if you are small.” And Paul smiled benignly down upon his new schoolmate, with the air of being vastly older and wiser and taller than he.