"Oh, I don't know," he said. "At all events, it keeps us young. As for Walton, I'd be ashamed to own him for a cousin," winking at Dan. "Why, Merrithew, all his family had been Yale from great-grandfather down."
"There; you hear him, Captain Merrithew," cried Miss Howland; "don't you think that's a horrid way to talk?"
Dan smiled, tapping lightly on the table with his fingers.
"I don't believe he was stolen," he said slowly, as though not quite certain whether he ought to venture an opinion. "Whether he was or not, I don't believe he'd ever have made the Yale team or the Princeton eleven either."
Virginia started in her chair and glanced at him swiftly.
"Indeed!" she said, flushing. "You don't mean to say—what do you know about Percy Walton?"
"Now you're in for it, Merrithew," grinned Oddington. "What do you know about Walton?"
Dan picked up his dinner card and spun it between his thumb and forefinger for a few seconds, and then with a slight smile replied:
"Why, not a great deal. Next to nothing, personally." He paused a moment, and then glancing down at the table added, "I was captain of the eleven on which Walton played at Exeter."
* * * * * *