"By special train. Our manager has arranged for one. I did think of autos, but the roads are pretty poor and then we want to take a big crowd with us to 'root' for a win. So we'll go by train."
"Then I'll come along. Now tell me about this Mr. Duncaster," and Dick proceeded to do so, detailing his own visit, and that of Mr. Larabee.
"Hum! A hard man to do business with. Still I've got to try, for it means a lot to me," and Mr. Hamilton sighed. Dick noticed with regret that his father's face was much more wrinkled than it had been, and the gray hairs were more numerous.
"The strain is telling on him," mused the lad. "I wonder what would happen if he lost all his money—and if I lost mine," for of late Dick had transferred most of his funds to his father, to use in the electric road deal. In fact most of the Hamilton fortune was now tied up in that line.
"But I guess dad will make out," concluded our hero. "He has been in tight places before, and has always pulled through."
Mr. Hamilton set off to see Enos Duncaster, and Dick made his father promise to take dinner with him that night at the Sacred Pig where an impromptu spread had been arranged in honor of the visit of the millionaire. Major Webster Colonel Masterly, and several of the academy faculty had promised to attend.
"It won't be much on the 'eat' line for you fellows and me," Dick had warned them, "we can't break training until after we have wiped out the disgrace of the Blue Hill defeat, and that won't be for two weeks. Then we'll have a feast that is a feast."
"Good!" cried Innis Beeby for he was fond of feasts, and suffered under the rigorous football regime.
Dick was waiting for his father's return from Mr. Duncaster's house that evening, sitting in his room trying to study. He was not making much headway for he was thinking of many things—of the game on the morrow—of the one with Blue Hill, and of what success his father would meet with. Paul Drew was out at a society meeting.
There came a knock on the door, a timid hesitating sort of a knock, and Dick, wondering who it could be, called out: