“I think we will let the matter drop,” said the dean next day, hiding a smile under an affected frown, “if you will promise, Mr. Barclay, to indulge yourself in no more—ah—” the dean’s voice failed him, and he swallowed spasmodically twice before he found it again—“no more celebrations of victory.”
And Barclay, very remorseful and chastened this morning, promised, and hurried off to his beloved Greek.
Both Barclay and the Yale Checkers Club graduated from their respective universities the following spring, and consequently the Intercollegiate Checkers Association died. But although gone, it is not forgotten; and “Barclay’s bonfire” is still spoken of as “the most gorgeous thing that ever happened.”
[MARTY BROWN—MASCOT]
Copyright, 1898, by The Century Co. All rights reserved.
Martin—more familiarly “Marty”—Brown’s connection with the Summerville Baseball Club had begun the previous spring, when, during a hotly contested game with the High School nine, Bob Ayer, Summerville’s captain, watching his men go down like nine-pins before the puzzling curves of the rival pitcher, found himself addressed by a small snub-nosed, freckle-faced youth with very bright blue eyes and very dusty bare feet:
“Want me ter look after yer bats?”