He doesn't seem to care whether he pleases Mills or
not. I think it's that chap Cowan. He tells Paul that Mills and Devoe
are imposing on him and that he isn't getting a fair show and all that
sort of stuff. Know Cowan?"

"Only by sight. I don't think I'd care to know him; he looks a good deal
like--like--"

"Just so," laughed Neil. "That's the way he strikes me."

After dinner that evening Paul bewailed what he called his ill luck.
Neil listened patiently for a while; then--

"Look here, Paul," he said, "don't talk such rot. Luck had nothing to do
with it, and you know it. The trouble was that you weren't in shape;
you've been shilly-shallying around of late and just doing good enough
work to keep Mills from dropping you to the scrub. It's that miserable
idiot Tom Cowan that's to blame; he's been filling your head with
nonsense; telling you that you are so good that you don't have to
practise, and that Mills doesn't dare drop you, and lots of poppycock of
that kind. Now, I'll tell you, chum, that the best thing to do is to go
honestly to work and do your best."

Paul was deeply insulted by this plain speaking, and very promptly took
himself off up-stairs to Cowan's room. Of late he spent a good deal of
his time there and Neil was getting worried. For Cowan was notably an
idler, and the wonder was how he managed to keep himself in college even
though he was taking but a partial course. To be sure, Cowan's fate
didn't bother Neil a bit, but he was greatly afraid that his example
would be followed by his roommate, who, at the best, was none too fond
of study. Neil sat long that evening over an unopened book, striving to
think of some method of weakening Cowan's hold on Paul--a hold that was
daily growing stronger and which threatened to work ill to the latter.
In the end Neil sighed, tossed down the volume, and made ready for bed
without having found a solution of the problem.

The following Monday Neil was rewarded for his good showing in the
Woodby game by being taken on to the varsity. Paul remained on the
second team, and Cowan, greatly to that gentleman's bewilderment and
wrath, joined him there. The two teams, with their substitutes, went to
training-table that day in Pearson's boarding-house on Elm Street, and
preparation for the game with Harvard, now but nine days distant, began
in earnest.

CHAPTER XI

THE RESULT OF A FUMBLE

Sydney Burr had trundled himself out to the field and had drawn his
tri