“I think it would be rather good fun myself,” said Alf, with a faint show of animation. “Think of the sport you could have. You wouldn’t have to study much, you see, and life would be just one long loaf.”
“To hear you, any one would think you were the original lazy-bones. Dry up for another ten minutes and just let me get this silly stuff, will you?”
“All right.” Alf yawned and turned his attention again to the outer world. He was a good-looking youth of eighteen, with a jolly, care-free countenance, upon which his present expression of irritability looked much out of place. Even hunched as he was into a faint resemblance to a letter W, it was plain to be seen that he had all the height that his age warranted. He was well-built, slim, and powerful, with more muscle than flesh, and the Yardley Hall Football Team under his leadership had in November last completed a successful season by defeating Broadwood Academy, Yardley’s hated rival. Alf was the best quarter-back that the school had known for many years.
His roommate, Tom Dyer, was big, rangy, and sufficiently homely of face to be attractive. He was ordinarily rather sleepy looking, and was seldom given to chatter. He had very nice gray eyes, a pleasant, whole-hearted smile, and was one of the best-liked fellows in school. In age Tom was nineteen, having recently celebrated a birthday. He had been basket-ball captain, but his principal athletic honors had been won with shot and hammer in the dual meets with Broadwood. Both boys were members of the First Class, and were due to leave Yardley at the end of the next term.
The room in which they sat, Number 7 Dudley Hall, was shabbily cozy and comfortable, combining study and bedroom. It was on the first floor, with two windows looking on to the Yard, as the space loosely enclosed by the school buildings was known, and so possessed the merit of being doubly accessible; that is to say, one might enter by the door or, if faculty was not looking, by the window. The latter mode was a very popular one, inasmuch as it was strictly prohibited, and the windows of Number 7 were in full view of some four studies inhabited by instructors.
Alf looked at his watch, holding it close in the waning light. It was a quarter past five. He slipped it back into his pocket with a sigh. There was a good three-quarters of an hour to be lived through before supper-time. At that moment his glance, wandering to the Yard, descried a slim figure approaching along the path from Merle, slopping carelessly through puddles and paying no heed to the rain. Alf looked a moment and then smiled.
“Guess you’ll have to call it off now, Tom,” he announced. “Here comes Gerald, and it’s a safe bet he’s headed for our humble domicile.”
Tom groaned. “That kid will be the death of me if Maury doesn’t call the track candidates pretty soon. Gerald asks me every time I see him when we’re going to begin work, and whether I think he will make the squad.”
Alf chuckled. “I thought when he got his Y at hockey last month he wouldn’t be so keen about making the Track Team. He’s a funny kid.”