“The management doesn’t pay for these, does it?” Jack asked.
“Thunder, no!” answered Motter. “The theater gives them to us, and advertises the fact that we’re going to be there; calls it ‘Erskine night.’ We’re on show, as it were. Some of the Harvard team are going, too. You needn’t fear that Patterson’s going to buy theater seats for us; you’re lucky if you get him to pay your car-fare to the station!”
Jack’s experience of theaters was extremely limited, and he enjoyed himself thoroughly all the evening. The team occupied two big boxes at the left of the stage, while across the house the corresponding boxes were filled with members of the Harvard team. There was some cheering on the part of the Purple’s supporters, but neither Hanson nor Joe encouraged it.
“Shut that up,” begged the latter, once. “They’ll think we’re a prep. school!”
At half past eleven they got into a train at North Station and went promptly to sleep, two in a berth, and knew little of events until they were roused out in the early morning at Centerport.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
JACK AT SECOND
Half a mile beyond Warrener’s Grove, the wooded bluff at the end of Murdoch Street, the river makes in the shore an indentation which is known as the Cove. It is not an attractive body of water. At some time in the past there was a brick-yard there, and even yet the remains of two weather-beaten sheds and a couple of high troughs in which the clay was mixed may be seen. During a spring freshet the river went over its banks and flowed into the pits left by the excavations. Later, the water and the frost connected the stagnant pond with the river; rushes gained foothold in the clay bottom and the old quarry took on the appearance of a natural cove. Save in one or two places the depth is but slight, and, in consequence, the Cove offers warmer bathing in the spring than does the river. On the side nearest the railroad there is a stretch of gradually shallowing water that answers all the purposes of a beach. It was here, then, that Anthony and Jack, during the latter part of May, came almost every morning, and, exchanging their clothes for gymnasium trunks, played the parts of teacher and pupil.