looking
on, while others fumbled the ball or failed to make a touchdown. What a
pity it was that when he had dropped out of school he had been obliged
to sacrifice his position on the team! Still how could any one be mixed
up in a football tackle if he had to wear blue glasses every minute?

No, for the present he must certainly keep out of athletics. He was, in
fact, pretty well out of everything. When he joined the fellows, it was
only to hear them joshing about some event wholly unintelligible to him.
All their jokes and horse play led back to the classroom until at length
he felt as if he might as well have listened to a lot of jibbering
Chinese as to try to understand their nonsense.

Yes, he was out of it--completely out of it! Gradually the realization
dawned on him. He was out of everything, the only idle person in a
rushing world. When he took a walk, except for the companionship of
Joffre, he went alone. Everybody was too busy to pay any attention to
him. He was bored with his own society--horribly bored.

"Isn't there anything I can do, Dad?" he desperately inquired one
evening, after his mother had all but read him to sleep with the life of
Benjamin Franklin.

"What do you mean, son?" asked Mr. Burton, dropping his paper and
emerging abruptly from Wall Street, his attention arrested more by the
lad's tone than by his words.

"I mean isn't there anything at all I can do? I'm sick to death of
loafing round this house."

"But I thought you were rather pleased to be out of school," Mr. Burton
asserted with surprise.

"I was at first--pleased as Punch; but I'm not now. I'm bored within an
inch of my life. I can't keep tramping round with Joffre from morning to
night, nor is there anywhere to go if I could. Besides, I haven't a soul
to speak to--everybody is studying or else playing football."

"It is hard, Christopher," agreed his mother with instant sympathy. "You
have been very patient."

"So you have, my boy! So you have!" Mr. Burton echoed. "I had no idea,
however, that you were unhappy. Well, well! We must see what can be
done."

He rose and began to pace the floor thoughtfully.

"Now if I could afford it," he went on, "I should pack you off on a trip
round the world. That would not only amuse you royally but afford you a
liberal education into the bargain; but I haven't the money to do that
just now, I'm afraid. Some more modest entertainment must be found. H-m!
I don't suppose as a makeshift