“No, I guess he meant all right, but he couldn’t tell us any better than he did,” replied Frank.
“And we’re out six bones for that warming pan,” went on Tom, regretfully. “We’ll have to see him again.”
They did, but the dealer insisted that he had told them to the best of his ability. He offered to get the man’s name and correct address the next time he saw him, but this was not likely to be soon.
In the meanwhile our friends were without their chair, and their spasmodic efforts to discover the mystery of the clocks had amounted to nothing.
“I tell you what it is,” said Kindlings to them one day. “If you chaps don’t perk up, and come to practice a little oftener, you’ll find yourselves on the side lines when the Boxer game comes off.”
That put more “ginger” into Tom and his chums, for they had been rather neglecting practice of late in their efforts to locate their chair. They had, however, almost given up ever seeing the ancient piece of furniture again.
In the meanwhile matters concerning the lawsuit were not going any too smoothly. A most careful search had been made for the missing quit-claim deed, and without it, it was rumored, the court proceedings must soon come to an end, with the eviction of the college authorities from the ground in dispute.
There were dark days for Randall, and only the hope of winning the football championship kept up the hearts of the students. Nor was this hope any too strong, for there were whispers as to the prowess of Boxer Hall. Randall had won her final game before the big struggle, and now was devoting all her energies to playing off the championship tie.
New plays were tried and rejected. A different code of signals was put in vogue, for it was rumored that Boxer Hall was “on” to those in use.
“They say Langridge is playing his head off this year,” declared Tom one night, when a crowd of the football boys had gathered in the room of our friends.