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“All right,” answered Harry, resisting for a moment. “But he can’t do that sort of thing and get away with it. I’ll get even with him before I’m through. And I’ll fight him whenever he likes.”

“You’d put up a grand little fight, wouldn’t you?” sneered Perry across the shoulder of one of his crowd. “Say, Fresh, you just keep away from me or you’ll get hurt, and hurt badly. Do you hear?”

“I hear you talk,” scoffed Harry. “That’s all bullies can do!”

Then his rescuer dragged him away just as a second group of boys came up demanding to know what the row was about. Harry accompanied his new friend for some distance in silence. Finally, moved to defense by the other’s unspoken censure, “Well,” he muttered, “you wouldn’t like it yourself, I guess.” His companion smiled. Then,

“Kid,” he said gravely, “you’ll find a lot of things you won’t like before you get through here.”

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A week later the awkward squad ceased to exist. Some few of the members, discouraged by the sheer irksomeness of the labor, voluntarily resigned; others, who showed no football possibilities, were dismissed, and the rest, perhaps ten in all, went to Squad C. Among the latter was Harry. Hugh Barrett, the big left guard, who had reigned over the awkward ones, had taken a sort of professional interest in Harry, an interest evinced by muttered words or grunts of commendation at first and by sharp criticisms later. Once he asked the younger boy: