“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Lots. If the ground isn’t frozen the water will seep into it about as fast as we run it on. Comprehend?”
“Yes, your Highness. It’s quite simple—when you know it. Now let’s go to supper and let it freeze.”
“It won’t do much freezing this sort of weather,” said French. “Smells like snow, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t know snow had any smell,” said Alf. “What I’d like to do if we could afford it, fellows, is to put planks around the sides.”
“How much would it cost?” asked French.
“I don’t know. I’ll come down to-morrow, though, and see how many planks it would take. They wouldn’t need to be more than ten inches broad. We could sink them two inches under the ice and that would leave eight inches above to stop the puck. You can do a lot better if you have something for the puck to carrom off of. I wish we had as good a rink as Broadwood has.”
“Maybe another year we can,” said French. “If we turn out a good team this winter perhaps the fellows will contribute toward fixing this up.”
“Yes, but I won’t be here,” laughed Alf. “And I find that what is going to happen next year doesn’t interest me as much as it ought to!”
With football over, the school settled for awhile into a quiet untroubled by athletic excitement. To be sure hockey and basket ball candidates practiced busily, but there were no matches to distract attention from study, which was an excellent thing for many of the students, since examination had begun to loom large on the horizon. Gerald, whose attention had been greatly distracted of late, was enabled to placate Mr. McIntyre by greatly improving his class standing in mathematics, a subject which held for him more terrors than any other study.