“Yes,” Russell agreed, “but I don’t believe we can find anything very close that we can afford to take. There’s one place--”
He broke off to look thoughtfully across at Stick.
“It’s upstairs, over The Parisian Tailors, on West street. But I don’t like the idea, Stick. You know yourself that a chap won’t climb a flight of stairs if he can find the same thing by walking a block or two further. And there’s Crocker’s store only five doors beyond. I guess that wouldn’t do.”
“Let’s go and have another look,” suggested Stick. “There must be some place we can have. We’ve got an hour before we need to eat, Rus. What do you say?”
“All right, but there’s no use going to Bagdad. We might try River street below West.”
“Huh, no fellow ever sets foot over there! I say, I’ve got it!”
“We’ll hire half a store from some one who doesn’t need it!”
“Why, yes, that might do,” replied Russell slowly, “but where are we going to find it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we can’t, but it’s an idea, isn’t it? Something to work on, eh? Let’s go and have a look.”
The journey of the little red car came to an end in three days instead of four, for Matilda developed distressing symptoms at a place called Bradford, got vastly worse at Mystic and broke down utterly some two miles short of New London. There for the present the three travelers left her and completed the trip by rail, parting one afternoon in the Grand Central Station with assurances of a speedy reunion.
Four days later, on the twenty-second, which was a Monday, Harley McLeod and Jimmy Austen reached Alton shortly after two o’clock and at half-past three were out on the football field with some sixteen other candidates. To-morrow would bring more, but sixteen wasn’t so bad for a first session, and Martin Proctor, this year’s captain, was plainly elated.
“Twenty-two fellows had the call,” he said to Harley and Jimmy after they had shaken hands, “and you fellows make sixteen who have shown up. That’s mighty good, isn’t it?”
“Not until Wednesday. He telephoned this morning. He expected to come to-day, but something’s happened. We won’t need him, anyway. We can’t do much more to-day and to-morrow than get the kinks out. Oh, say, Jimmy, that reminds me. You’ll have to put in a lot of time on punting this fall. Keep that in mind, will you? Practice whenever you get a chance, like a good fellow. We’ve got to work up a kicking department with not much to build on. And we play Lorimer in a little over three weeks!”