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“About football? No.”

“I wish you would. Why don’t you?”

“Lots of reasons,” answered Toby smilingly. “In the first place, I tried it last fall. In the sec——”

“You call that trying? You just went out with a whole mob of fellows and loafed around until they got tired of walking on you. Besides, you were out for the Second. The First’s a different proposition, son, especially now that you’ve made good in hockey. Every one knows that you’ll be hockey captain next year.”

“It’s more than I know,” said Toby good-naturedly. “Anyhow——”

“And you’re at least fifteen pounds heavier than a year ago. They said you were too light, didn’t they?”

“They meant in the head,” replied the other gravely.

“They were dead right, too! But, honest, old thing, joking aside——”

“Arn, I haven’t got time for football and I can’t afford it.”

“That’s what you said about hockey last winter. And you were so pressed for time that you copped a Ripley Scholarship! As for ‘affording’ it, where’s the expense come in?”

“Togs and things,” answered Toby. “And traveling expenses. Arn, if I went in for football and made the team—which I couldn’t do in a million years—I’d have to go back to sponging coats and pressing trousers, and that would make the room awfully smelly, and you wouldn’t like it a bit.” And Toby ended with a laugh.