"Good-night, sir. Good-night, sirs. Thank you."

Amy retired unhurriedly, unembarrassedly, and with dignity, as befitted
one who had opened the eyes of Authority to the error of its ways!

The next morning Mr. Fernald announced in chapel that at the request of
Mr. Moller, and in consideration of good behaviour, the faculty had
voted to lift probation from the following students: Hall----

But just there the applause began and the other eight names were not
heard.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DOCTOR TELLS A STORY

TUESDAY, with the return of all first-string players to the line-up and
the appearance of Tom Hall once more at right guard, practice went about
a hundred per cent better, and those who turned out to watch it went
back to the campus considerably encouraged. The showing of the team
naturally had an effect on the spirit of the mass meeting that evening.
Ever since the Southby game the school had been holding meetings and
"getting up steam" for the Claflin contest, but they had been tame
affairs in contrast with tonight's. Brimfield was football-crazy now,
for the Big Game loomed enormous but four days away. Fellows read
football in the papers, talked football and, some of them, dreamed
football. The news from Claflin was read and discussed eagerly. The
fortunes of the rival eleven were watched just as closely as those of
the home team. When a Claflin player wrenched an ankle Brimfield gasped
excitedly. When it was published that Cox, of the blue team, had dropped
fourteen goals out of twenty tries from the thirty-five-yard line and
at a severe angle, depression prevailed at Brimfield. The news that the
Claflin scrubs had held the first to only one touchdown in thirty
minutes of play sent Brimfield's spirits soaring! Fellows neglected
lessons brazenly and during that week of the final battle there was a
scholastic slump that would undoubtedly have greatly alarmed the faculty
if the latter, rendered wise by experience, hadn't expected it.

The first team players were excused from study hour subsequent to Monday
in order that they might attend blackboard lectures and signal drills in
the gymnasium. On Tuesday night, after an hour's session, and in
response to public clamour, they filed onto the platform just before the
meeting was to begin at nine-fifteen and, somewhat embarrassedly, seated
themselves in the chairs arranged across the back. Mr. Fernald was
there, and Mr. Conklin, the athletic director, and Coac