“I congratulate you.”

“But you don’t seem very pleased over it,” said Bart, feeling keen disappointment. “You have been urging me to make a try for the eleven. But for you, I should not have done it.”

“Believe me,” said Merry, “I am pleased. I was glad to see you tear through their line as you did. More than that, I was glad that your work was noticed.”

“Was it?” eagerly.

“Sure thing. It’s being discussed in every quarter of the campus now. I know Birch took particular note of it, and you will stand a big show of playing right along as a regular after this.”

Bart’s face glowed.

“There was a time,” he confessed, “when I fancied I did not care a rap to play on the eleven.”

“I know that,” nodded Frank.

“You changed that.”

“Did I?”