"Yes," said David for himself. "Before I met you I didn't think I'd go to school at all, but last summer changed me somehow. I saw what a good time Burton had, and when I thought of you over here making lots of friends and taking part in things, I wanted to come along."
"Yes, and it happens," said the Colonel, "that Doctor Hobart is a personal friend of mine, and it was easily arranged that David come here, though it is nearly the end of October and half the first term gone. The only difficulty about it seems to be, for I have just had a talk with the Doctor, in getting the right kind of a room for him; they are crowded to the limit here."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that the room part of it is all arranged. He's going to bunk in with me. The night I got your telegram I put it up to Gleason, my room-mate, and he had no objections. The place is not big, but plenty big enough for us two."
David beamed with joy, and the Colonel expressed his pleasure that the boys were to be together again. "David needs companionship to bring him out of himself," he said, "and it is possible that David may be a help to you, Frank."
That night the Colonel and David sat down to table in the school dining hall together with Frank and Jimmy and Lewis, and when dinner was over they strolled under the great elms of the school yard and listened to the Glee Club singing on the steps of Russell Hall. To David it was like fairy-land.
CHAPTER XIV.A MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE.
David saw his first football practice the next afternoon and enjoyed the spectacle of Jimmy zipping through the line or spilling the fellow with the ball when he happened to be playing on the defensive. Dixon was living up to the part of the contract forced upon him by Frank and the Wee One, and made no further obstacle for Jimmy when the coach occasionally put him over in the backfield on the First eleven. But Chip bore the Freshman halfback no very deep affection. He was, however, becoming more and more impressed with the belief that Jimmy was the genuine material and that he was pretty nearly necessary to the welfare of his eleven. Hillard generally took precedence, that is, he went in at first, but Jimmy would get in awhile toward the end of practice.
During the week, practice had been very satisfactory, by far the best of the season, and when on Saturday the school eleven scored 12 to 4 against the Milldale High School eleven, hope began to run high in the school that perhaps after all Queen's might pull out that Warwick game, which was now only a week off.