At supper time the entrance of every football fellow was, as usual, warmly applauded, and cheerfulness was more apparent. Stuart, coming in a few minutes late, with Neil, was met with a salvo such as had been accorded only Jack Brewton. Stuart, drawing his chair out, looked back to see who had followed him into the hall, and was surprised to discover that the long-continued chorus of “A-a-ay!” was in his honor. He felt an odd sense of pleasant confusion and tried to hide it by drinking from an empty water glass. A crowd that included Stuart and Jack and Neil invaded the moving picture house after supper and, finding a really humorous comedy to laugh at, returned to school in better spirits.
But in Stuart’s case the spirits didn’t outlast the night, and when he awoke nearly an hour before he needed to on Sunday morning and found the world gray and soggy under a drizzling rain he became horribly depressed. He couldn’t get to sleep again, but lay listening to the patter of the drops on the window ledge and faced a blank future. There didn’t seem to be anything to get up for! Nothing this morning nor any other morning! Life looked frightfully drab and dull. No more football! Nothing ahead but lessons! He groaned and pulled a sheet over his head. Of course, he might go in for basketball. That was pretty good fun. Or hockey. Either one would at least keep him in training. But for what? More basketball or hockey! Just now he was in a martyrlike mood and told himself that he’d never try football again; anyhow, not at Manning. He had made a dismal failure of it and self-respect at least forbade his going back to it. They’d elect Howdy Tasker captain next Saturday evening, probably. Well, Howdy was all right, but he had had enough of working under some one else. And Haynes would be coaching again, he supposed. Well, Haynes had been pretty decent lately, he’d say that, but if he went back to the team next year there’d be the same old rows! No, he was through with football; plumb, everlastingly through!
Neil awoke with a prodigious yawn and a backward stretch that knocked his knuckles resoundingly against the wall. Neil always awoke that way. Then he sat up and, as Stuart thrust the sheets from his face, blinked across smilingly. “Hello,” he said. “What time is it?”
“About a quarter to eight,” answered Stuart morosely. “Go to sleep again.”
“I’m slept out. Gee, it’s raining, isn’t it?”
“No, some fellow’s cleaning his teeth out the window,” said Stuart sarcastically. Neil brushed the remaining sleep from his eyes and studied his roommate for a moment in silence. Then:
“Whence the grouch, son?” he asked sympathetically.
“Oh, what’s the good?” asked the other vaguely. “Nothing to look forward to now but just a lot of beastly studying!”
“Cheer up, Christmas vacation’s only a month away!”