s possible.

"It's me, Mr. Walton," was the response.

Melvin had an inspiration.

"Not on your life!" he shouted. "You're one of those lowbrows from
Number Two trying to play a trick on us. Mr. Walton wouldn't say: 'It's
me.' He'd have said, 'It is I.' Now, go 'way and let us sleep. We're on
to you, all right."

There was a moment of awful silence and then they heard the steps of
their visitor going softly and swiftly down the hall.

The boys were nearly bursting with laughter at Melvin's audacity, and
when they felt sure that it had really succeeded, they broke out in a
roar.

"And it worked!" shrieked Slim, rolling over and over. "By jiminy, it
really worked! Mel, you're a genius. I take off my hat to you."

"You covered yourself with glory that time, old man," said Fred, as soon
as he could speak for laughter. "Beansey will never get over it. Can't
you see his face, as he faded away down the hall? The fellows in the
other dormitories will be green with envy when they hear about it."

"It was nip and tuck," grinned Melvin. "I just took a chance that
Beansey would rather let us go than to own up that he'd made a slip in
grammar. But even now, we're not safe. He might think it over and come
back. Let's get a hustle on and remove these evidences of crime."

In three minutes more, everything was set to rights, and the boys
slipped in between their covers, theoretically to sleep, but actually to
lie awake and chuckle for a long time, at the way they had "put one
over" on the monitor.

The day for the football game with Lake Forest was rapidly drawing
nearer. Under the steady practice and hard work through which Granger
put his team, it was swiftly rounding into shape.

Although at first the other boys had the advantage over Fred of having
played a long time together, and of knowing just what to expect from one
another in any crisis of the game, his quick mind and keen ambition soon
put him on a level with them in that respect, and he had developed into
one of the mainstays of the team.

None had appreciated this more than Tom Eldridge, whose place Fred had
taken at fullback, but there was not a trace of envy in the way he stood
around the side lines, leaning on a stick, and applauding every
brilliant play of his successor.

"You're a star, Fred," he said to him one day after an especially
sparkling bit of strategy. "You can play rings around the Lake Forest
fullback. And he's no slouch, either."

"You mu