if
I were you."

There was a murmur of assent from three or four of the others.

"Well, I suppose he ought to play," Skinner said; "but it does rile me
to see him come sauntering up as if it was quite an accident that he was
there, and talk in that drawling, affected sort of way."

"It is riling," another said; "but besides that I do not think there is
much to complain about him, and his making an ass of himself at other
times does not affect us so long as he plays well in the team."

"No, I do not know that it does, but all the same it is a nuisance when
one fellow keeps himself to himself and never seems to go in for
anything. I do not suppose Easton means to give himself airs, but there
is nothing sociable about him."

"I think he is a kind-hearted fellow," Edgar Clinton said, speaking,
however, with less decision than usual, as became one who was not yet in
the first form. "When young Jackson twisted his ankle so badly last term
at the junior high jump, I know he used to go up and sit with him, and
read with him for an hour at a time pretty near every day. I used often
to wish I could manage to get up to him, but somehow I never could spare
time; but Easton did, though he was in the college four and was working
pretty hard too. I have known two or three other things he has done on
the quiet. I don't care for his way of dressing nor for his drawling way
of talking, in fact, I don't care for him at all personally; but he is a
good-natured fellow in spite of his nonsense."

"Well, then, we must try him again," Skinner said, "and see how he does
in the trial matches. There is no certainty about him, that is what I
hate; one day he plays up and does uncommonly well, then the next day he
does not seem to take a bit of interest in the game."

"I have noticed several times," Scudamore said, "that Easton's play
depends very much on the state of the game: if we are getting the best
of it he seems to think that there is no occasion to exert himself, but
if the game is going against us he pulls himself together and goes into
it with all his might."

"He does that," Skinner agreed; "that is what riles me in the fellow. He
can play a ripping good game when he likes, but then he does not always
like. However, as I said, we will give him another trial."

Half an hour later the subject of the conversation arrived. He was in
the first form on the classical side, and was going up at the next
examination for Sandhurst. Easton