“Go to the deuce, Kit!” Lawrence broke in. “Deering’s in the Third. Take your sloppy boots to the First Form locker-rooms, and don’t brag here. Swat him, Tony, if he gets fresh.”
Kit burst into a ripple of delicious, infectious laughter. “Oh, that’s the ticket! Well, Tony, my darling, will you condescend to dip your lily fingers in this humble basin? The attar of roses unfortunately is ‘all,’ as the excellent Ebenezer Roylston has been known to put it. Permit me to offer you a towel.” With the words he deftly extracted Jimmie’s handkerchief, and thrust it at Deering. There was a laugh and scuffle between the two boys, quickly over as a distant bell sounded; they grabbed their coats, and fled unwashed toward the great dining-hall, which occupied the same relation to the Old School on the east as the Chapel did on the west.
“Can you play football?” asked Kit, as they ran along the terrace.
“I don’t know—” began Tony.
“Well, come out this afternoon, and find out. Report to me in football togs at three, and I’ll give you a chance on the Third Form squad.”
“Thanks awfully.”
“Cut that out! Scoot now after Jimmie, or you’ll be late. Good-boy Bill hates a laggard, and you’re at his table.”
Then had come the first bewildering dinner, with the myriads of strange faces about him. Already he thought of Jimmie Lawrence, next whom he sat, as an old friend. In the afternoon he was carried off to the Store and fitted out with football clothes, and then led off to the playing-field back of the quadrangle to be tried out. The game was strange to him, and he felt an awkward muff at it. But as a matter of fact he was quick and fleet and intelligent, and at the end of the afternoon, Kit deigned to pat him on the shoulder and to bid him reappear on the morrow. “You are not half bad, you know; for a land-lubber, so to speak. Mind you’re regular, and don’t eat toffy, and keep clear of the pie-house!”
At 5 o’clock Tony found himself excused from afternoon school by the Doctor’s command, and went in to tea at the Rectory and was introduced to Mrs. Forester—a sweet, motherly, middle-aged woman; and to two or three masters, the sarcastic Mr. Gray amongst them; and to four or five members of the noble Sixth, who were discussing the new football material. Tony spent a pleasant half-hour there, and after a talk with, or rather from, the Doctor about Kingsbridge and Deal in the olden time, he was sent back to the schoolroom and to afternoon recitations.