Among those who were playing football on the Corinthian eleven was Wallace. He told David, however, that he meant to enter the quarter-mile, too, and that he was coming out a couple of days before the meet to see if he could get back his speed; he had finished third in the championship meet of the preceding spring. When he made his appearance in running clothes two days before the race he asked David to time him and was much pleased because he ran the distance in only one second more than at the spring meet. “And if I’d had to, I could have pushed myself a little. Now I’ll time you, Ives. You haven’t got on your running shoes—spikes hurt your feet?”
“Yes, the old shoes are too small. But these will do.”
David started off, and while he was circling the track Bartlett came over from the football practice and watched him.
“Look here!” exclaimed Wallace in excitement when David stopped, panting, in front of him. “As nearly as I can make it your time is the same as mine to a fraction!”
“Then I guess I shall have to push myself a little, too,” David said.
“Both Johnson and Adams, who licked me last year, have left the school, and I thought I had a cinch,” Wallace complained. “And now you turn up, running like a deer!”
Bartlett put in a word of praise. “You’re going pretty well, Ives. To-morrow be sure to come out in running shoes.”
“I haven’t any,” David replied.
“You can get them at the store in the basement of the study.” [[see Tr. Notes]]