with no attempt at sociability or
heed to the laws of digestion.

Afternoon practice was at four o'clock. Individual practice was followed
by team practice against an imaginary foe, and this in turn gave place
to a line-up against the second eleven. Two stiff twenty-minute halves
were played. Then again individuals were seized on by captain and
coaches and put through paces to remedy some fault or other. And then
the last player trots off the field, and the coaches, conversing
earnestly among themselves, follow, and the day's work is done. There
are still the bath and the rub-down and the weighing; but these are
gone through with leisurely while the day's work is discussed and the
coaches, circulating among the fellows, inflict an epilogue of criticism
and instruction.

There remained usually the better part of an hour before dinner, and
this period Joel spent in his room, where with the lamp throwing its
glow over his shoulder, he strove to take his mind from the subject of
tackling and starting, of punting and passing, and fix it upon his
studies for the morrow.

For life was far from being all play that fall--if hard practice and
strict training can be called play!--and Joel found it necessary to
occupy every moment not taken up by eating, sleeping, and practicing on
the gridiron with hard study. It can scarcely be truthfully asserted
that Joel's lessons suffered by reason of his adherence to athletics,
though a lecture now and then was slighted that he might use the time in
pursuing some study that lack of leisure had necessitated his
neglecting.

But a clear head, a good digestion, and racing blood render studying a
pleasure rather than a task, and Joel found that, while giving less time
than before to lessons, he learned them fully as well. One thing is
certain: his standing in class did not suffer, even when the coaches
were more than usually severe. Joel's experience that fall, and many a
time later, led him to conclude that the amount of outdoor athletics
indulged in and the capability for study are in direct ratio.

West, too, was a most studious young gentleman that term, and began to
pride himself on his recently discovered ability to learn. To be sure,
golf was a hard taskmaster, but with commendable self-denial he did not
allow it to interfere with his progress in class. Both he and Joel had
earned the name of being studious ere the end of the fall term, and
neither of them resented it.

Unlike the