“I’m willing. Only thing is, you fellows, I may get the gate when I run up against the examination. Think they’ll let me by, eh?” He appealed a bit anxiously to Pete, and Pete smiled.
“If Bonner and Bert Winslow were on the committee you wouldn’t have much trouble,” he replied, “but I don’t know how hard those entrance exams are. Hope you pass, though, Crail. We need a few fellows of about your build this fall. How did you happen to change your mind about Mount Morris?”
A Montfort Crail smiled. “Well, I’d made up my mind to go somewhere. You see, I’ve never had much schooling. I’m a good deal of a dunce, I suspect. I saw this Mount Morris Academy advertised in a magazine I picked up one day, and wrote to them and got a sort of a circular. That was last month. So I asked them could I get in if I came, and they said I could if I ‘met the requirements.’ I didn’t know just what those were, but I thought I’d take a chance. Then I ran across Harold and his friend——”
“Who?” asked Pete.
“I mean Logan and Baker here,” corrected Monty with an apologetic grin at Jimmy. “They told me about this place, and I thought ‘What’s the good of going to Mount Morris when Grafton’s an hour nearer?’ You see, I’ve had two days on the cars, and I’m sort of tired of them.”
“That’s one reason for coming,” laughed Pete. Then he added, more seriously, “I’d advise you to be prepared for a disappointment, Crail. I’ve an idea they’re pretty well filled up, and you may find that they can’t take you. In that case you could go on to Mount Morris, though.”
“Sure.” Monty nodded carelessly. “I guess there are plenty of schools in this part of the country, eh?”
“What ought he to do?” asked Jimmy. “Go to Pounder, and tell him he wants to enter, or—or what?”
“If it was me,” replied Pete, “I’d see Charley and tell him just what had happened. I have an idea Charley would think it was a kind of a joke on Mount Morris, and so he might stretch a point, and make it all right for your friend. Pounder might just say that they were filled up and all that, you know.”