HARDING of 
 ST.TIMOTHY5 
 
 ARTHUR 
 
 STANWOOD 
 
 PIER
 
 artjwr ^tamuootj pier 
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S. (A Story for Boys.) 
 
 Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50. 
 THE ANCIENT GRUDGE. Crown 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
 
 "FELLOWS," HE SAID, "I'D LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU AREN'T GET- 
 TING TIRED OF THIS SECRET SOCIETY BUSINESS?" (Page 178.)
 
 HARDING 
 OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER 
 
 ATJTHOB OF 
 
 'BOYS OF ST. TIMOTHY'S," "THE ANCIENT GRUDGJC," 
 BTC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 ($be ftitoersi&c press, CambdDge 
 1906
 
 COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September 70o6
 
 Acknowledgment is made to The Youth's 
 Companion, in which this story first ap- 
 peared, under the title, " Harry Harding's 
 Last Year." 
 
 2127758
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "FELLOWS," HE SAID, "I'D LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU 
 
 ARE N'T GETTING TIRED OF THIS SECRET SOCIETY 
 
 BUSINESS?" (page 178) Frontispiece 
 
 ONE OF TWO BOYS . . . ROSE AND CAME FORWARD 
 TO MEET THEM 8 
 
 "THE GANG IS GOING TO THE PlE HOUSE TO-MOR- 
 ROW AFTERNOON TO DRINK YOUR HEALTH*' . . 58 
 
 "AND ALL THAT NOBLE, NOBLE INSTITUTION, THE 
 CROWN!" 76 
 
 DOCTOR VINCENT BRUSHED PAST HIM AND KNELT 
 BESIDE THE INJURED BOY 96 
 
 THERE WAS A PLEASANT TWINKLE IN HIS EYES . . 130 
 
 HARRY, WITH HIS HEART BEATING FAST, . . . LOOKED 
 OUT INTO THE ANTECHAPEL 198 
 
 THE RECTOR AWAITED THEM . . , . . 232
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 riTlHE master in charge of the great silent 
 -*- schoolroom touched a bell. Instantly the 
 silence was broken with a variety of sounds. 
 There was an outburst of confused speech, a 
 scraping of chairs and feet on the wooden 
 floor, a slamming together of books, and a 
 banging of desk-lids. For the touching of the 
 bell signified that the last study hour of this 
 September afternoon was ended. 
 
 The boys issuing from the brick building 
 divided into two streams, which turned to 
 right and left, moving up or down the maple- 
 shaded road toward the two big dormitories 
 of St. Timothy's School. Some of the boys 
 were frolicking, chasing one another, playing 
 leap-frog as they went, out in the middle of 
 the road ; but most of them moved languidly 
 along the sidewalk in groups of three and
 
 2 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 four. It had been a half holiday ; they had 
 been playing hard all the afternoon, except 
 for this one study hour, and were tired. 
 
 Harry Harding and Rupert Ormsby were 
 the last to leave the study building and stroll 
 toward the Upper School. Harry's movements 
 were especially indolent. 
 
 "What's your hurry, Rupe?" he said. 
 " We have plenty of time." 
 
 " Yes," said the bigger boy, as he slackened 
 his pace. " I suppose I won't get supper any 
 sooner for hurrying, but I'm awfully hungry." 
 
 " That 's what comes of being such an all- 
 round athlete," Harry rejoined, and then he 
 added wistfully, " Do you think I '11 ever be 
 able to do anything in athletics, Rupe ? " 
 
 " Oh, I should n't wonder. You showed up 
 pretty well in the football practice to-day. If 
 you were n't so light. But you can run and 
 I guess you have plenty of sand." He smiled 
 at Harry cheerfully, but Harry seemed to be 
 in gloom. 
 
 " When you 're in the sixth form," he said, 
 " and sort of prominent because you once had
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 3 
 
 a brother here that everybody knows about, 
 you wish sometimes you could amount to 
 something yourself." 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Rupert. 
 " You 're head editor of the ' Mirror ' and 
 vice-president of the Pen and Ink, and gener- 
 ally a great gun. What more do you want ? " 
 
 " Oh, it is n't that sort of thing that 
 counts," replied Harry. "It's athletics. I'd 
 give anything to be the sort of all-round fel- 
 low my brother Clark was the sort you 
 are." 
 
 " Ho ! brains beat muscle any day." 
 
 "There's one thing," Harry continued, 
 " that I am glad of, and that is that it 's you 
 who are the big all-round athlete. You '11 be 
 president of the athletic association and cap- 
 tain of the crew, and everything else. And 
 I 'm mighty glad of it ! " 
 
 " Thanks ! " Rupert laughed. " Only I 'm 
 afraid your congratulations are premature." 
 
 " Oh, no ! You 're the only real athlete in 
 the whole sixth form. There are two or 
 three pretty good in the fifth, like Sam Hall
 
 4 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 and Nat Dennison, but they won't count 
 till next year. By the way, Rupert," he 
 spoke with a sudden embarrassment, as if he 
 hardly knew how to approach the subject, 
 " I wanted to tell you, I hope you '11 be glad 
 to know, you 've been taken into the 
 Crown." 
 
 Rupert stopped and leaned against the 
 fence. They were only a hundred yards from 
 the Upper School. Boys were sitting on the 
 steps of the big brick building or standing 
 about on the grass-plot in front, waiting for 
 the supper-bell. 
 
 "I'm sorry," Rupert said. "I'll have to 
 decline it, Harry." 
 
 "Why? " There was blank disappointment 
 on Harry's face. 
 
 "I don't stand for the Crown." Still lean- 
 ing against the fence, Rupert reached out, 
 grasped Harry's shoulders, and shoved him 
 back and forth, gently, affectionately. 
 
 " Why not? " There was resentful surprise 
 now in Harry's tone. 
 
 "Because," said Rupert, releasing him,
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 5 
 
 " it 's a clique, and there ought not to be any 
 clique in a school like this. You fellows in 
 the Crown think that you 're the aristocracy ; 
 you flock by yourselves and manage things so 
 that you run the school. I 'm not saying you 
 don't run it pretty well, but I object to the 
 system." 
 
 " The fellows in the Crown are your 
 friends the fellows you know and like 
 best the best fellows in the school," 
 pleaded Harry. " I should think you 'd like to 
 join them." 
 
 " There ! " exclaimed Rupert. " Just as if 
 a fellow outside of your society can't be an 
 intimate friend of fellows in it ! That 's just 
 what I object to." 
 
 " No, I don't mean that. I don't think it 's 
 true." 
 
 " Besides," continued Rupert, " I 'm not so 
 sure that you have the best fellows in the 
 Crown. I don't believe Joe Herrick 's a very 
 good sort of fellow." 
 
 " Herrick 's improved a lot since he 's been 
 a member," declared Harry, " and we want to
 
 6 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 have the best fellows, don't we, when we 're 
 so anxious that you should join us? " 
 
 Rupert laughed. " You 're a persuasive little 
 chap," he said. " But I 'm sorry. I don't be- 
 lieve in it, Harry, and I can't join. Tell the 
 fellows how much I appreciate the honor and 
 all that." 
 
 Harry looked very downcast. 
 
 " They '11 be awfully disappointed," he said. 
 "I guess my brother Clark never saw any 
 harm in the Crown. He was president of it 
 when he was in school and I think he 's as 
 good as there is." 
 
 " I guess he is, too, from what I 've heard 
 of himj" Rupert said kindly. " But he's built 
 differently from me, that 's all. He 's the sort 
 of fellow who takes things as they are and 
 makes the best of them; and I know his 
 going into the Crown and using his influence 
 must have done a lot of good. But I don't 
 believe my going in would do me or the 
 Crown any good. So I think I'll stay out- 
 side." He laughed and patted Harry's shoul- 
 der. "We 'd better be going in to supper."
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 7 
 
 Harry -was too disappointed to speak. Of 
 all the boys at St. Timothy's, Rupert Ormsby 
 was the one whom Harry had come to like 
 best. He had been attracted to Rupert the 
 year before, when the big fellow had entered 
 St. Timothy's as a "new kid." Rupert's 
 " build " had excited Harry's admiration, his 
 candid blue eyes and friendly smile had won 
 Harry's liking. There was a cheerful, inde- 
 pendent freedom in his manner toward every 
 one, old boys and new, and at the same time 
 a kindly consideration for whoever might be 
 his comrade and he seemed hardly to have 
 a choice of comrades. 
 
 As Rupert and Harry approached, one of 
 two boys sitting on the dormitory steps rose 
 and came forward to meet them. 
 
 " Hello, Bruce ! " said Harry, and Rupert 
 said, "Hello, Watson!" 
 
 Bruce Watson linked his arm in Harry's 
 and walked with him carelessly up the steps, 
 past his former companion, who stood to one 
 side rather bashfully. Rupert nodded to this 
 thin, shy fellow, and wondered why Watson
 
 8 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 should have abandoned him so abruptly. 
 Watson had nothing special to say, and when 
 he accompanied Harry and Rupert inside and 
 sat with them in the " common room," it seemed 
 merely because of a preference for their soci- 
 ety. And Rupert knew that Francis Stoddard, 
 the boy who remained outside on the steps, 
 had been Bruce Watson's closest friend. 
 
 That evening, before they went to bed, all 
 the fellows in the Crown were aware that 
 Rupert Ormsby had declined their election. 
 Some of them, especially Joe Herrick, were for 
 feeling insulted, but the general sentiment was 
 merely one of surprise and disappointment. 
 
 "He simply does n't approve of secret soci- 
 eties," Harry said gloomily. 
 
 " It makes me a good deal less keen about 
 him for president," said Joe Herrick. 
 
 " Oh, he 's the fellow for it." Harry's as- 
 sured, offhand declaration did not even invite 
 a debate, and Joe Herrick was silent. 
 
 The presidency of the athletic association 
 was, on the whole, the most desirable honorary 
 office in the school. It was not that it car-
 
 By permission of The Youth's Companion 
 ONE OF TWO BOYS ROSE AND CAME FORWARD TO MEET THEM
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 9 
 
 ried with it any special power or responsibil- 
 ity ; the only duty of the incumbent was to 
 get himself up in his best for a public appear- 
 ance on the annual field-day, and introduce 
 to the audience the distinguished guest of the 
 occasion, who was to make a speech and pre- 
 sent the prizes. But it had become almost 
 traditional that the president of the athletic 
 association should be one of the great athletes 
 of the school. And ever since the organiza- 
 tion of the Crown, this office like most of 
 the important school offices had been held 
 by a member of the society. This year, be- 
 fore electing him a member, the Crown had 
 " slated " Rupert Ormsby for the position. 
 
 The day after Harry's talk with Rupert was 
 a Sunday. In the afternoon small groups of 
 boys were assembled near the study building 
 in the shade of the maples. It was a warm 
 afternoon for the end of September. All the 
 boys were arrayed in their best, with patent 
 leather shoes, and trousers handsomely creased, 
 and large, beautiful neckties. They were all 
 of an age when they took a great deal of
 
 10 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 pains to be well dressed. Some one had 
 brought into the school the information that 
 it was proper to wear one's coat with the low- 
 est button fastened. All the boys were now ob- 
 serving this graceful, negligent fashion ; their 
 coats were drawn snugly about their waists 
 and bulged comfortably about their chests. 
 
 A tall master with a brown mustache and 
 eye-glasses, almost as well dressed as any of 
 the boys, and resting his hip on a cane, stood 
 by the doorway. 
 
 Now and then a group of boys would stroll 
 toward him and touch their hats ; one of them 
 would say, " Bounds, please, sir ? " and he 
 would answer, " Yes, Nelson," or, " All right, 
 Jones." That meant that they were free to 
 walk out into the country beyond the school 
 limits. 
 
 Harry Harding stepped out on the lawn 
 in front of the chapel and began throwing a 
 tennis-ball back and forth with Joe Herrick, 
 just as if it were not Sunday. The master 
 looked up and saw him. 
 
 " Harding ! Herrick ! " called the master,
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 11 
 
 frowning and shaking his head. " Must n't do 
 that there." 
 
 " May we do it on the ice, sir ? " Harry 
 asked earnestly, and the boys laughed. 
 
 " You have a foolish wit, Harding," the 
 master said, with an indulgent smile ; and 
 because he was indulgent he had to reprove 
 Harry and Herrick a moment later for again 
 throwing the ball. 
 
 Gradually the boys scattered, some of them 
 going up over the hill, on which stood the red 
 brick house of one of the masters, the others 
 walking down the slope toward the mill-pond. 
 
 Francis Stoddard and Bruce Watson had 
 been sitting together on the fence, and Ru- 
 pert Ormsby had been sitting near them with 
 two fifth formers. Suddenly Bruce slipped 
 down to the ground, and said : 
 
 " Well, so long, Frank ! Harry Harding 
 and Joe Herrick and I are going for a walk," 
 and he turned and called, " Coming, Harry ? " 
 
 The three went off together up the road. 
 
 Rupert after a moment called out, " Don't 
 be so exclusive, Stoddard ! Come over here ! "
 
 12 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 With a shy, grateful smile, Stoddard got 
 down from his perch and joined Rupert and 
 the fifth formers, Hall and Dennison. He did 
 not know either of them particularly well, and 
 pretty soon Hall said, " Denny and I were 
 thinking of taking a walk. Won't you fellows 
 come along ? " 
 
 Stoddard was relieved when Rupert an- 
 swered for him, " Oh, I think we '11 sit here 
 awhile and be lazy." 
 
 When the others had departed, he turned 
 to Stoddard and said : 
 
 " What 's the matter with Bruce Watson 
 these days ? " 
 
 Stoddard flushed. " Why, nothing, I guess. 
 Why?" 
 
 " You and he used to be as thick as thieves," 
 said Rupert. He glanced at Stoddard with a 
 friendly smile. " You 're right to keep up the 
 bluff. Let 's you and me take a walk and 
 talk things over." 
 
 They went off in the direction opposite to 
 that which Harry Harding and Joe Herrick 
 and Bruce Watson had taken. They walked
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 13 
 
 down by the mill-pond, and round that off 
 into the woods, and came out upon the road 
 half a mile behind the school. For some time 
 neither of them spoke. At last Rupert said 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Did you know that Bruce has been taken 
 into the Crown ? " 
 
 " No," Stoddard answered ; and he added, 
 " I don't know much about the Crown." 
 
 " That 's all that 's the matter with Bruce," 
 continued Rupert. " He 's just been taken in 
 and of course he has to be very intimate 
 with the Crown fellows all at once. That was 
 why last night he had to rush up and stick 
 his arm in Harry's and walk off with him. 
 And this afternoon he had to go with Harry 
 and the rest to the regular Sunday meeting 
 of the Crown up at their sacred rock, you 
 know. If you feel he 's sort of sort of going 
 back on you, don't be troubled. Just put 
 it down to his young enthusiasm for his new 
 friends." 
 
 "I was feeling rather badly about it," 
 Stoddard acknowledged. " You see, Bruce is
 
 14 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 about the only fellow I Ve been intimate with 
 here. I don't know why he should have gone 
 about with me so much when he 's such a 
 popular fellow himself ; but he did, and I 
 liked him better than any one else. The last 
 few days, though, he's been different some- 
 how and I was feeling kind of unhappy 
 about it. I suppose," Stoddard added, tim- 
 idly, " you 're in the Crown ? " 
 
 Rupert shook his head. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't know I 'm sorry I sup- 
 posed you were in everything," Stoddard said, 
 in embarrassment. 
 
 " I 'm not in the Crown, anyway, " Rupert 
 assured him. 
 
 " Of course when a fellow gets into that, 
 it 's natural he should n't care any longer for 
 fellows outside," Stoddard remarked, with 
 resignation. " The Crown must have such an 
 awfully good time among themselves always 
 doing things together that nobody else knows 
 about and having all sorts of private little 
 jokes and things. Of course a fellow in the 
 Crown can't be intimate any more with an
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 15 
 
 outsider, no matter how much he may like 
 him." 
 
 "I think that's true," Rupert admitted. 
 " But you 'd better not feel badly about that." 
 
 "Well," said Stoddard, "I suppose a fel- 
 low can't help being a little more lonely." 
 
 " Oh, I refuse to be lonely," declared Ru- 
 pert. 
 
 " It 's different. You're in so many things. 
 I don't see why you 're not in the Crown," 
 said Stoddard innocently. " Of course you 're 
 never lonely." 
 
 " I tell you what we '11 do ! " Rupert ex- 
 claimed, after they had walked on a little 
 while. They were making a circuit back to- 
 ward the school. " We '11 get up a burlesque 
 society of our own, just you and I. We two 
 will be the charter members, and it will be 
 very secret and exclusive, and it won't do a 
 thing except have a name and a burlesque 
 society pin that we '11 be very mysterious about. 
 We '11 elect other members, perhaps, and you '11 
 soon find you won't be feeling lonely. Of 
 course if we find our burlesque is making any
 
 16 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 hard feeling, we'll give it up; but I don't 
 believe it will. What do you say? " 
 
 " Oh, I think it would be fun," said Stod- 
 dard. His eyes were shining at the thought. 
 "Thank you for wanting me to be the other 
 member." 
 
 " I '11 see about getting half a dozen cheap 
 pins," said Rupert, " and we '11 have to think 
 up a name for it." 
 
 They walked on, talking about this, Stod- 
 dard never suspecting all the kindness that 
 had inspired the idea. Rupert had proposed 
 it with the thought that it might relieve the 
 lonely boy 's sense of desertion ; it was a way 
 of stepping into Bruce Watson's place. 
 
 Meanwhile the members of the Crown had, 
 as Rupert had guessed, made off to their Sun- 
 day afternoon rendezvous. It was the absurd 
 theory that, sauntering away in detachments, 
 they excited no suspicion of their real pur- 
 pose. When Harry Harding and Joe Herrick 
 and Bruce Watson, who were the last to 
 start, came up over the brow of the hill be- 
 yond the school, they found their comrades
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 17 
 
 sitting in line on the stone wall by the road- 
 side. Then they all slipped down and marched 
 together along the road. There were fifteen 
 of them, and each one wore above the watch- 
 pocket of his waistcoat a gold pin a min- 
 iature crown. 
 
 They turned in at a path through a field. 
 Crossing this field and climbing over the stone 
 wall at the farther side, they came down 
 into a hollow in which rose an enormous gran- 
 ite rock. Here they seated themselves, out 
 of sight from any one passing by on the 
 road. 
 
 "The meeting will come to order," said 
 Harry, rapping on the rock with a stick. 
 " The chief business to-day is to decide whom 
 we '11 put up for president of the athletic 
 association. I guess we 're all pretty well 
 agreed that Rupert Ormsby 's the man for it." 
 
 " I 'm not so sure," said Herrick. 
 
 " Who else is there ? " Harry asked. 
 
 " Well, there are plenty of others. Any- 
 way, I don't see why the Crown should put 
 up somebody who 's refused to be a mem-
 
 18 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 ber. If a fellow is n't with us when he can 
 be, he 's against us, and I don't see why we 
 should be represented by such a fellow or do 
 anything to help his election." 
 
 " But if he 's the best man for the place " 
 struck in Harry. 
 
 " Any man 's all right for the place if he 's 
 a good fellow and popular with the school, 
 and interested enough in athletics not to seem 
 absurd in such a position. What I say is that 
 now the Crown can't afford to elect Rupert 
 Ormsby. The only way we can keep our pres- 
 tige with the school is by keeping all the 
 honors in the Crown. We 've always had the 
 presidency; we've got to have it this year 
 just as usual." 
 
 There was an interval of silence after this 
 speech; the boys looked impressed. Harry, 
 in his zeal to save the situation for Rupert, 
 adopted a weak argument one that was a 
 direct challenge to the pride of the society. 
 
 " There 's nobody in our crowd we could 
 elect over Rupert," he said. 
 
 " Oh, I guess there is," declared Tom Albree.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 19 
 
 And then Frank Windsor, who was Harry's 
 roommate, spoke up : 
 
 " What 's the matter with Harry ? I bet we 
 could elect him ! " 
 
 There was a general murmur of applause at 
 this, and Harry turned red and laughed. " Oh, 
 talk sense," he urged. " Who is there that 
 can stand the least show against Rupert Orms- 
 by?" 
 
 "That's all right," Frank Windsor per- 
 sisted. " I 'm talking sense." 
 
 " Harry 's about the most popular fellow in 
 the school," said Bruce Watson. 
 
 "Yes. And it makes no difference if he 
 is n't a great athlete. It 's popularity that 
 counts." 
 
 " He '11 make a good deal better speech than 
 Rupert Ormsby would." 
 
 " He '11 be on one of the club football-teams 
 if he is n't on the school team and that 's 
 athlete enough, really." 
 
 " Oh rot ! " Harry, blushing furiously, in- 
 terrupted this confused, many-voiced recital 
 of his qualifications. " You all know as well
 
 20 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 as I do that the place belongs to the best 
 athlete " 
 
 " It belongs to the fellow that the school 
 wants to give it to," cut in Frank Windsor. 
 
 " If the Crown nominated Rupert Ormsby 
 the school would want him all right," insisted 
 Harry. 
 
 " Yes, but the Crown won't nominate Ru- 
 pert Ormsby ! " said Joe Herrick, in a tone of 
 triumph. 
 
 " It 's kind of an embarrassing position for 
 you, Harry, having to put the question of 
 your own nomination," Frank Windsor said. 
 " You 'd better let me take the chair, and we '11 
 rush you right through." 
 
 " Yes, give it up, Harry. Go ahead, Frank, 
 put it through ! " the boys urged. 
 
 " No, hold on ! " Harry pleaded ; but they 
 drowned him out, crying : 
 
 "Go ahead, Frank!" 
 
 Frank Windsor rose to his feet. " All those 
 in favor of Harry Harding as the Crown's 
 candidate for president of the athletic associa- 
 tion please say l Aye.' '
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 21 
 
 There was a loud response. 
 
 " Contrary minded, ' No.' ' 
 
 A faint " No ! " issued from Harry, and 
 provoked a laugh. 
 
 " It is a vote." 
 
 Then they all jumped up, crowded round 
 Harry, and shook hands with him and slapped 
 him on the back. He could not help feeling 
 gratified at such a demonstration of affection. 
 And they all told him how right it was that 
 he should have the place. He would simply 
 be following in his brother Clark's footsteps. 
 They told him that they guessed it ran in 
 the family to be popular. Their satisfaction 
 was so convincing and genuine that he could 
 not feel really unhappy at having the honor 
 thrust upon him. 
 
 The Crown discussed plans of campaign 
 until the quarter-bell, sounding for the Sunday 
 afternoon sacred studies, summoned them from 
 their retreat. By that time each member had 
 in his pocket a list of six boys whom he had 
 promised to interview, and if possible persuade. 
 As the meeting for election was not to be held
 
 22 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 for a week, there was plenty of time in which 
 to influence doubtful voters. 
 
 When the boys recrossed the field and came 
 out into the road, Rupert Ormsby and Francis 
 Stoddard were just passing. Stoddard dropped 
 his eyes bashfully. Rupert waved his hand, 
 called out, "Hello, fellows ! " and hurried on. 
 
 At sight of Rupert, Harry's elation was 
 momentarily subdued. The thought that he 
 was pledged to win an honor which he did not 
 merit and which a friend deserved smote 
 sharply upon his sense of friendship and jus- 
 tice. 
 
 But Rupert swung out of sight round a 
 bend in the road ; the other boys kept tossing 
 jokes and compliments at Harry and calling 
 one another to witness his blushes; then they 
 began to push him about with affectionate 
 roughness ; and pretty soon he had dismissed 
 the compunctions pricking his conscience and 
 fallen back on the comfortable feeling that he 
 had done his best, and that if all the fellows 
 insisted on electing him it would not be his 
 fault.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 THE campaign to elect Harry president of 
 the athletic association was quiet but in- 
 dustrious. If a boy found himself walking 
 with a member of the Crown, it was surpris- 
 ing how soon the conversation would turn to 
 a discussion of candidates. The Crown adher- 
 ent would ask his companion, quite deferen- 
 tially, what he thought; and if the boy 
 expressed the usual mistaken preference for 
 Rupert Ormsby the Crown man would concede 
 all Rupert's good qualities, but would say that 
 in spite of them Harry Harding seemed to 
 him the best fellow for the place. 
 
 If he was a skillful campaigner, he would 
 enlarge upon Harry's excellent qualifications 
 without at all detracting from Rupert's until 
 the last, when he had perhaps got his friend 
 into an agreeable and receptive state. By 
 that time it would be safe, even while admit- 
 ting Rupert's virtues, to be a little skeptical.
 
 24 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 As an athlete Rupert was of course all very 
 well, but were there not other things to be 
 considered ? 
 
 Would not Harry be sure to make a much 
 better speech and say the most graceful thing 
 in the most graceful way ? After all, Harry 
 had plenty of interest in athletics, and played 
 games pretty well, considering his lack of 
 weight. He was just as good a fellow as 
 Rupert better, maybe ; he was certainly 
 brighter, and then his brother Clark had been 
 such a splendid person president of the ath- 
 letic association and everything else. It would 
 be rather a pleasant thing to let Harry fill his 
 brother's place. 
 
 That was the line of argument which Harry's 
 friends adopted, and along which they worked 
 with more or less subtlety. At the outset, as 
 they well knew, the odds were against them. 
 It was difficult to demonstrate to the unpreju- 
 diced that Harry Harding had better claims 
 to an athletic presidency than Rupert Ormsby. 
 But the Crown expected by organized and 
 consistent effort to overcome this difficulty.
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 25 
 
 Rupert was conducting no campaign ; he was 
 simply favored at the outset by general senti- 
 ment. 
 
 The fellows in the Crown were most of them 
 popular throughout the school, notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that they kept pretty much to 
 themselves. Therefore when an obscure and 
 usually neglected boy found one of these busy, 
 popular persons walking with him, or waving 
 an informal hand with unaccustomed familiar- 
 ity and joining him in preference to some 
 more intimate companion, he thought that it 
 was pleasant and added to the cheerfulness of 
 life. He listened then with a sympathetic in- 
 terest to this experienced person's confidential 
 opinions, and naturally made an effort to share 
 them. 
 
 In such circumstances an attempt to enlist 
 his support for some less attractive candidate 
 than Harry might have succeeded. As it 
 was, the boy was usually willing to make some 
 concession of opinion in Harry's favor. For 
 Harry had the widest and most varied acquaint- 
 ance of all the boys in the school. As editor
 
 26 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 of the school paper and president of the literary 
 society and head scholar of his class, he was 
 in touch with the quiet, studious boys ; as a 
 cheerful, humorous, and occasionally mischief- 
 making youth, he was always welcome in a 
 gathering of the irresponsible and idle ; as an 
 enthusiastic and emulous admirer of the ath- 
 letes, he was liked by them. 
 
 So the reports which his friends brought 
 him grew steadily more favorable ; and as the 
 time for the election drew near Harry grew 
 insensibly more covetous of the honor. 
 
 The conscientious reluctance which he had 
 had when his friends had first proposed to 
 make him a candidate had quite vanished. 
 He had put down the uncomfortable feeling 
 that his election would be absurd and gro- 
 tesque, and an injustice to some one else. He 
 set his imagination on that day in June 
 when, after the last race had been run and the 
 prizes had been brought out in front of the 
 spectators' stand, he would step forward with 
 a great red badge on his breast and intro- 
 duce some famous man a senator or a cab-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 27 
 
 inet officer, or it might even be the President 
 of the United States himself! For the Pre- 
 sident was a college friend of the rector's, 
 and had promised to visit the school some 
 time during the year and address the boys. 
 There could not be a more likely occasion 
 than on that of the great school field-day; and 
 Harry dreamed of the honor of standing up 
 before all the school and the visitors and in- 
 troducing the President of the United States 
 to them. Harry's brother and mother would 
 be in that audience, and would they not be 
 proud of him ? Would not the other boys and 
 the parents and the sisters of the other boys 
 admire him and envy him ? Even if it was not 
 the President, but only a senator or a cab- 
 inet officer ! When Harry let himself think 
 of this occasion and all that it would mean 
 to him, his hands grew cold with excitement 
 and a sort of delicious fright, and his lips 
 parted in a happy, dreamy smile, which any- 
 body noticing it would have thought the 
 most winning expression of a gentle, unself- 
 ish character.
 
 28 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Well, his thoughts at those moments were in 
 a way tender and unselfish, for perhaps the 
 pleasantest one of all was that about his 
 mother and Clark. He would be glad to make 
 Clark proud of him. For it was through Clark 
 that he was having this last year at St. Tim- 
 othy's and the chance to enjoy such honors. 
 His mother could not have afforded to send 
 him back; but Clark, traveling round the 
 world as tutor to Archer Sands, who had 
 overworked at school, was supplying the 
 funds at a personal sacrifice. He would be 
 back the first of June. It would make him 
 proud then to see how splendidly his sacrifice 
 had been repaid. 
 
 In a matter of so much personal impor- 
 tance, Harry did not stop to wonder if Ru- 
 pert had dreams and ambitions, too. If he had 
 thought about it at all, he would probably 
 have decided that Rupert was too unimagina- 
 tive to take any delight in the possibilities 
 which the election would mean. 
 
 Francis Stoddard was made aware of the 
 acti vity on Harry Harding' s behalf. One after-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 29 
 
 noon Stoddard had been at the playgrounds 
 watching the football practice with most of 
 the school. Bruce Watson, who had been 
 looking on with Albree and Stearns, came up 
 and joined him. When the practice was over, 
 Albree called out, " Coming up to the school 
 with us, Bruce?" and Watson answered: 
 
 " No, I 'm going to wait and walk up with 
 Frank." 
 
 Stoddard was very much pleased quite 
 touched, in fact. Bruce had not shown any 
 interest in him before for a good while, and 
 this looked like a willingness to resume the 
 former intimacy. 
 
 They walked up to the school together, 
 Bruce with his arm laid affectionately across 
 Stoddard' s shoulders. And after a time, in 
 the most natural way in the world, Bruce 
 was expressing the idea that Harry Harding 
 would be a mighty good president of the 
 athletic association, and asking Stoddard to 
 vote for him. 
 
 " Oh, but, Bruce, Rupert Ormsby 's the 
 fellow for it ! " Stoddard cried.
 
 30 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 "No, I really don't think so," Bruce said, 
 and then he entered carefully upon the stock 
 arguments of the Crown. They had no effect 
 upon Stoddard. At the schoolroom Bruce 
 parted from his friend good-naturedly. 
 
 " Well, you 'd better think it over, Frank," 
 he urged. 
 
 Stoddard lived rather out of the school 
 world, and a good many things went on of 
 which he knew nothing. The day after his 
 friendly little walk with Bruce, however, Nat 
 Belmont opened his eyes. Nat Belmont was 
 shrewd and rather sharp-tongued, and took 
 the cynical interest of an observing outsider 
 in the doings of the Crown. He admired Ru- 
 pert Ormsby, and having noticed the increas- 
 ing friendship between Ormsby and Stoddard, 
 he came up to Stoddard before dinner one day, 
 and said : 
 
 "It looks as if the Crown was going to lick 
 Rupert for president." 
 
 "How do you mean?" asked Stoddard. 
 
 "Why, don't you know? They're going 
 round, buttonholing everybody and asking
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 31 
 
 every one to vote for Harry Harding. Has n't 
 Watson or some one tried it on you?" 
 
 The blood rushed to Stoddard's face. So 
 that was why his old friend had walked with 
 him so affectionately the day before merely 
 to make use of him. 
 
 " I did n't know about it," he said. 
 
 " Well, it 's so. If you can do anything to 
 help Rupert's chances, you 'd better." 
 
 Do anything ! Stoddard wished he could. 
 But no one knew better than himself that he 
 had no influence in the school. He had never 
 done anything to compel respect other than 
 that half-contemptuous kind which boys have 
 for a capacity to get good marks and avoid 
 bad ones. If he undertook to do any election- 
 eering for Rupert he knew he would be re- 
 garded as a busybody, and those to whom he 
 made his appeal would be more likely than 
 not to think he was hurting his candidate's 
 chances. 
 
 But he was indignant over what he regarded 
 as a conspiracy against Rupert, indignant and 
 grieved at Bruce Watson's duplicity. And
 
 32 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 with his indignation hot upon him, he went 
 straight to Rupert. 
 
 " There 's something I think you ought to 
 know," he said. " I 've just found out that the 
 Crown fellows are all going round trying to 
 get Harry Harding elected president of the 
 athletic association." 
 
 " Yes," said Rupert, rather amused by the 
 boy's indignation, " I 've known that. Harry 's 
 not much of an athlete, but he 's a good fellow, 
 and he '11 be all right for president." 
 
 " It is n't fair ! " cried Stoddard. " You 're 
 the only fellow in the school that anybody 
 ever thought of. And now a whole gang is 
 going round, using their influence to defeat 
 you." 
 
 " Well," said Rupert, " why should n't they, 
 if they want Harry for president and don't 
 want me ? As far as I 'm concerned, he 's en- 
 tirely welcome to it. Personally, I would n't 
 lift my finger to be elected." 
 
 " But you ought to be," insisted Stoddard. 
 
 " Oh, well," Rupert laughed, " it does n't 
 matter. There 's nothing to the office. If there
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 33 
 
 were anything to it I might get more stirred 
 up. But it's just an empty honor. I don't 
 care." 
 
 Stoddard looked at him with such keen dis- 
 appointment that again Rupert laughed. Then 
 he put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 
 
 " It 's good of you, anyway, to take such an 
 interest and want to help," he said. " Thank 
 you, Francis." 
 
 " I don't care ! I don't believe they can 
 beat you ! If there 's anything I can do " 
 Stoddard's emotions were too stirred to permit 
 him to continue. " I 'm going to speak to every 
 one I know," he added, after a moment, 
 " though I don't know many." 
 
 " Well, don't make yourself unpopular on 
 my account. By the way, I ordered those 
 pins, for that exclusive society of ours, 
 and they were to be here this afternoon. 
 Don't you want to walk down to the express 
 office with me and see if they 've come ? " 
 
 They had come ; and in the basement of the 
 study building, where the express office was 
 situated, Rupert opened the little package.
 
 34 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 There, what do you think of that?" he 
 asked, with a grin. 
 
 It was not an elaborate or even an orna- 
 mental pin merely the two large letters SB 
 twisted together in ordinary copper wire. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " Stoddard asked. 
 
 " How about Society Busters ? " Rupert an- 
 swered. " But we need n't tell anybody; just 
 keep 'em guessing." 
 
 At that moment Nat Belmont and Jerry 
 Dorr came down the basement steps to the 
 express office. 
 
 " Shall we elect them members ? " Rupert 
 whispered, on a sudden inspiration. " I 've 
 got a couple of extra pins. These fellows are 
 not in the Crown, and I guess it would amuse 
 them." 
 
 "All right," said Stoddard. 
 
 Rupert summoned the two boys, and then 
 said to them mysteriously, " Do you fellows 
 want to join the SB ? " 
 
 "What 's that? " asked Belmont. 
 
 " A bluff," replied Rupert. " Some people 
 will think it 's a secret society, but it is n't.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 35 
 
 It 's nothing. All you do to belong is to wear 
 the SB pin and keep up the bluff. The mem- 
 bers never know whether SB means Society 
 Busters or Secret Bluff, or what. That 's all 
 there is to it. Want to join ? " 
 
 " Sure ! " they answered. 
 
 Rupert presented them with the insignia. 
 
 " Now," he said, " let 's put our pins con- 
 spicuously on our vests and sally forth into the 
 world. We Ve got about five minutes before 
 study is called in just time enough, if we 
 keep together and hold a straight face, to start 
 a nice little sensation." 
 
 They marched up the steps and sauntered 
 about in front of the study, with their hands 
 in their pockets and their coats wide open, ex- 
 hibiting their pins. Francis Stoddard felt quite 
 self-conscious, and had hard work to repress 
 the nervous little smile that was twitching at 
 his lips. A good many fellows seemed to 
 be staring, and that both excited and embar- 
 rassed him. But the three other conspirators 
 strolled about with faces that were quite 
 unconcerned.
 
 36 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 In a moment the boys were called in to 
 study. Francis went to his desk, which was 
 next to Bruce Watson's. As he sat down, 
 Bruce looked at him curiously. 
 
 After an hour of study the master in charge 
 of the room touched a bell, the signal for the 
 five minutes' intermission allowed before the 
 beginning of the second hour. 
 
 Instantly a confusion of talk and sound 
 sprang up. Francis, engaged in finishing a 
 Greek exercise, did not immediately leave his 
 seat. When he did rise, Bruce Watson was 
 waiting for him and Rupert Ormsby was com- 
 ing down the aisle. 
 
 "What the dickens is that, Frank? " asked 
 Bruce, putting out his hand and touching the 
 pin. SB. What's SB?" 
 
 Francis glanced up at Rupert for help, and 
 Rupert answered. " SB is an organization of 
 which Frank and I are charter members," he 
 said. " I 'm rather surprised you should ask, 
 Watson. You ought to know the proper way 
 to act about such things." 
 
 Watson reddened, muttered an apology, and
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 37 
 
 then made off. Rupert winked at Francis, and 
 laughed. 
 
 Out in the hall Watson gathered a group of 
 members of the Crown, Tom Albree, Harry 
 Harding, Joe Herrick, and Frank Windsor. 
 
 " Have you noticed the new society ? " he 
 asked them excitedly. 
 
 " Belmont and Ormsby and that crowd ? " 
 said Herrick. " I saw they 're flashing a pin 
 on us. You think they've got a society?" 
 
 " I know it," said Watson. " I Ve just 
 been called down by Ormsby for inquiring. I 
 know what it is ! He 's got it up to buck 
 against the Crown." 
 
 "It can't be ! " exclaimed Harry. "Rupert 
 told me himself he would n't join the Crown 
 simply because he did n't believe in secret 
 societies. After that he would n't turn right 
 round and organize one." 
 
 "He has, though," insisted Watson. "He 
 as much as told me so. He told me he and 
 Stoddard were charter members" 
 
 "I guess," Herrick interrupted, "he found 
 he 'd have to get up another society to work
 
 38 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 for him, or else he'd lose the election. That's 
 it. You see if there is n't a sudden outburst of 
 campaigning for Rupert Ormsby now. And 
 if he is elected, he '11 make his society a per- 
 manent thing and try to lick the Crown in 
 everything. You see." 
 
 " I think you 're right," said Albree. " I 
 hope, though, he 's started too late." 
 
 Herrick's suggestion was most unwelcome 
 to Harry, who was beginning to think, from 
 all that had been told him, that his own elec- 
 tion to the presidency of the athletic associa- 
 tion was now assured. But if Rupert should 
 suddenly inaugurate an organized effort in op- 
 position, the issue would be placed in doubt. 
 Harry did not feel confident of his own 
 strength. And through the next study hour 
 he sat with an anxious mind, which reproached 
 Rupert for his perfidy. It seemed, after all 
 that Rupert had said, almost incredible that 
 he should have taken this step ; yet there 
 was the pin he was wearing as evidence, and 
 the purpose of it seemed to Harry's agitated 
 mind only too clear.
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 39 
 
 At the end of the hour, when the boys were 
 walking away from the study building, Harry 
 attached himself to Rupert. 
 
 "You don't mind my asking, Rupe," he 
 began at once, " what 's the meaning of that 
 pin you 're wearing ? " 
 
 "Sh-h!"said Rupert. "We don't talk 
 about such things." 
 
 " I thought you disapproved of secret soci- 
 eties," contended Harry. 
 
 " There are some things that are not to be 
 discussed," Rupert answered coldly. 
 
 " Just the same, I think it 's pretty mean of 
 you to talk about the Crown the way you did 
 and then go off and organize another secret 
 society." 
 
 " Sh-h ! " was Rupert's only reply, and it 
 had such a teasing sound that it made Harry 
 too angry to speak. He left Rupert when they 
 reached the dormitory. Rupert entered and 
 went upstairs to his room. 
 
 Harry waited outdoors with three or four 
 other fellows. By and by Joe Herrick arrived, 
 and then Harry accompanied him upstairs.
 
 40 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 They had rooms in the same wing with Rupert 
 Ormsby. 
 
 As they were walking down the long corri- 
 dor, Francis Stoddard came out of his room, 
 which was the last one in the wing. Herrick 
 advanced, blocking the passage. 
 
 " Look here, Stoddard ! " he said. 
 
 He took Stoddard by the arms and pushed 
 him up against the wall. They happened to 
 be close by Rupert's door, and the transom 
 over the door was open. 
 
 Harry lingered out of curiosity. Herrick 
 was always playing pranks with Stoddard, 
 snatching his cap or his books, or holding him 
 when the bell rang, and so making him think 
 he would be late to chapel and get a black 
 mark. Harry did not altogether approve of 
 this treatment, but it had its amusing side, 
 and now he waited with a certain expectancy. 
 
 " Let 's have a look at this thing you 're wear- 
 ing," Herrick said, and holding Francis hard 
 against the wall with his shoulder and one 
 arm, he reached down with the other hand and 
 unfastened the pin. Francis struggled to pre-
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 41 
 
 vent him, but Herrick was strong, and held 
 him firmly. When he had secured the pin, 
 Herrick examined it. " What does this cheap 
 thing stand for ? " 
 
 Francis was silent. 
 
 " Not allowed to speak, eh ? Some kind of 
 a society. It can't be much if that 's the best 
 it can do in the way of a pin. SB. What do 
 you suppose SB stands for, Harry ? " 
 
 " Something Bum," suggested Harry, with a 
 laugh ; and even Stoddard's face, which had 
 been anxious, twitched with an involuntary 
 smile. 
 
 " You say Something Bum and I say Sour 
 Boys," said Herrick. " What do you say, Old- 
 Stick-in-the-Mud ? " 
 
 He jammed Stoddard against the wall in a 
 way that made him gasp. But Stoddard did 
 not speak. 
 
 "I think," said Herrick, pocketing the pin, 
 " that we '11 keep this beautiful object as a 
 souvenir of the Somewhat Bum Sour Boys. 
 And now maybe you '11 tell me what you call 
 it. No? Oh, I think you will."
 
 42 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 He began slowly twisting Stoddard's wrist. 
 
 At that moment the door by which he was 
 standing opened, and Rupert Ormsby appeared. 
 
 " Standing by to see fair play, I suppose, 
 Harry?" Rupert said in a calm voice, and 
 Harry flushed and dropped his eyes. Herrick, 
 startled by this sudden intervention, stood un- 
 decided, gripping Stoddard's wrist. 
 
 " I don't know why my coming out should 
 make any difference to you, Herrick," Rupert 
 continued. " You were just on the point of 
 doing something. Why don't you go ahead ? " 
 
 " I was just having a little fun with him," 
 Herrick answered. " I was n't going to hurt 
 him." 
 
 " Why, of course not," said Rupert mildly. 
 " You were just going to persuade him to tell 
 you something that you saw he did n't want 
 to tell and that was no business of yours. You 
 weren't going to hurt him at all; you were 
 just going to try the effect of a little torture 
 on him, for you 're nothing but a bully, after 
 all, and Harry was just going to stand by 
 and be amused ! "
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 43 
 
 " I was n't you 're not fair, Rupe ! " cried 
 Harry, choking with mortification and anger. 
 
 But he could not say another word in his 
 defense, and Rupert passed him over with an 
 ironical glance. Herrick still kept his grip on 
 Stoddard, but he looked at Rupert with sullen 
 eyes, in which there was as much indecision 
 as wrath. 
 
 " You 'd better mind your own business ! " 
 he said. " You 're too fond of butting in." 
 
 " That comes well from a fellow who holds 
 up another and takes his pin from him and 
 tries to wring his secret out of him by force," 
 Rupert said scornfully. And in a voice that 
 took on a sudden cutting edge, he cried, " Now, 
 then, you bully, take your hands off that boy ! " 
 
 Herrick, with a sneer, said, " Are n't we the 
 hero ! " and dropped his hands. 
 
 " Give him back his pin ! " ordered Rupert. 
 
 Putting his hand into his pocket, Herrick 
 slowly drew out the pin. And then, instead of 
 passing it over to Stoddard, he flung it the 
 length of the corridor. Rupert sprang upon 
 him, and pinioning his arms, ground him
 
 44 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 against the wall and held him there as helpless 
 as Herrick had a few moments before been 
 holding Stoddard. 
 
 " I have half a mind," said Rupert, speak- 
 ing between his teeth, "to tear that pin of 
 yours from your vest and throw it out of 
 the window. It 's what you deserve. But I '11 
 tell you what you '11 do instead ; you '11 march 
 down there and pick up Stoddard' s pin, and 
 you'll pin it on him with your own hands. 
 That's what you '11 do." 
 
 "I won't!" Herrick said furiously. 
 
 " I '11 get it, Rupert, " Harry said, in a chas- 
 tened voice, and he started down the corridor. 
 
 " You '11 let it alone ! " cried Rupert. " Get 
 out of the way ! " 
 
 There was a moment's tussle and then 
 Herrick came flying past Harry down the 
 corridor, propelled by Rupert's weight. He 
 brought up sufficiently hard against the wall 
 at the farther end, and before he could turn, 
 he was again in Rupert 's grip. 
 
 " There 's the pin," said Rupert, swinging 
 him round with some violence. " Pick it up ! "
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 45 
 
 And then Herrick obeyed. Rupert marched 
 him back up the corridor to where Stoddard 
 was standing. " Now pin it on him ! " he said, 
 and again Herrick obeyed. But when he had 
 finished he turned toward Rupert a sullen 
 and malignant face. 
 
 " You wait ! " he said, and his voice was 
 husky with passion. " You wait ! " 
 
 Then he turned and went down the corri- 
 dor, downstairs. 
 
 Harry loitered awkwardly. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Rupe," he said. 
 
 " You'd better be," was Rupert's curt reply. 
 " If you really were, you 'd say it to Stod- 
 dard, not to me." 
 
 Harry turned meekly to Stoddard. "I'm 
 sorry, Francis I am, honestly," he said. 
 
 " Oh, that 's all right," Stoddard answered. 
 " You did n't do anything." 
 
 "Yes, that was just the trouble," was 
 Rupert's harsh observation. "Come along, 
 Frank ! " and taking the boy by the arm, 
 he led him away. 
 
 Harry turned and went unhappily to his
 
 46 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 room. He had been stung to the heart by 
 the truth in Rupert's rebuke ; and yet he felt 
 that Rupert had been more cruel to him than 
 he deserved.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 AFTER a few hours Rupert Ormsby came 
 to the conclusion that he had treated 
 Harry with too great severity. He had a brief 
 interview with Dorr and Belmont and Francis 
 Stoddard ; and then in the half-hour just be- 
 fore bedtime which was allowed the sixth form 
 for visiting, he went to Harry's room. 
 
 "Hello!" he said cheerfully, when he en- 
 tered and found Harry alone. " I guess I was 
 a little rough with you before supper this 
 evening. You need n't think I 'm going to 
 take back everything," he added, "because 
 I 'm not ; but maybe you got more than you 
 deserved." 
 
 "I think I did," Harry answered. "Of 
 course I would n't have stood by and let Stod- 
 dard be really hurt. I 'm sure I 'd have I 'd 
 have objected to that, anyway. Herrick hadn't 
 really hurt him, you know " 
 
 " Yes, he was only beginning to hurt him,"
 
 48 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 observed Rupert. " The thing is, a fellow like 
 you, who can in a way create sentiment in this 
 school, ought not to stand by and seem amused 
 when Herrick bullies an inoffensive boy." 
 
 " I know it," admitted Harry, growing red. 
 "I just did n't think." 
 
 " You 're going to be elected president of 
 the athletic association," said Rupert, and at 
 this Harry grew more red and embarrassed, 
 and did not know which way to look. " Now 
 live up to the job, Harry before as well as 
 after." 
 
 "It's not my job, I guess," Harry mur- 
 mured. "It's more likely yours." 
 
 Rupert shook his head and laughed. "Not 
 for me. I don't care about it in the least, and 
 I shan't stand in your way." 
 
 " It 's mighty good of you to tell me that, 
 Rupe," Harry said, with genuine feeling. " Of 
 course, there's no reason why I should be 
 president. If the fellows want to elect me I 'd 
 like to have it, but " 
 
 It was easier for him to stop, leaving the 
 sentence unfinished.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 49 
 
 " There 's one other thing I came to tell 
 you," said Rupert. " You notice I 'm not wear- 
 ing my pin. You and Herrick and Watson 
 needn't feel much worried about SB. I sup- 
 pose you thought we were trying to work 
 against the Crown ? " 
 
 " We did have that idea," Harry admitted. 
 
 "I'll tell you about SB," Rupert said. 
 " One day I saw Francis Stoddard snubbed by 
 Bruce Watson, who 'd always been his special 
 friend. Watson threw him over to run with 
 some of you fellows after being taken into the 
 Crown. I saw that Stoddard was feeling pretty 
 sore and lonely, and I thought it would make 
 him feel better to have somebody intimate 
 with him. And then I thought it would be 
 pretty good fun for him and me to pretend 
 we were members of a secret society that 
 would seem intimate, all right. I thought, too, 
 it would be quite a joke to get the Crown and 
 the other fellows in the school excited about 
 it. At the last moment we decided to take 
 Jerry Dorr and Nat Belmont into our fake so- 
 ciety ; it would make it look a little more real.
 
 50 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 But none of us wanted to stir up any bad 
 blood, and apparently we've done that. So 
 we 've called the whole thing off, we 've thrown 
 away our pins, and you fellows in the Crown " 
 he laughed " are still the only real, gen- 
 uine secret society in the school." 
 
 Harry smiled rather sheepishly. 
 
 " Then we got so excited over nothing at 
 all?" he said. 
 
 " It looks that way to me," Rupert answered, 
 rising to go. " Herrick was so interested in 
 SB, you might tell him now what it was," he 
 added. " And Watson I think it would be 
 just as well if you told Watson why SB was 
 organized." 
 
 "I will," Harry promised. "I you make 
 me feel quite small, Rupert and at the 
 same time I 'm much obliged." 
 
 Rupert took his hand with a friendly laugh. 
 
 " I hoped there would n't be any hard feel- 
 ing between us," he said. " Good-night, 
 Harry ! " 
 
 It did not soften Herrick's resentment and 
 mortification when Harry told him the next
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 51 
 
 day that the new society had been all a joke ; 
 it was rather more humiliating, if anything, to 
 know he had been deluded as well as rebuked. 
 
 But Bruce Watson was more sensitive to 
 Harry's lecture. 
 
 " The whole thing about the Crown, Bruce," 
 Harry said to him, "is that if it's to have 
 any influence at all, and a good influence, 
 the fellows in it must take an interest in 
 the fellows outside it. For a fellow to join it 
 and then cut the friends he 's had before is 
 no way to do." 
 
 " I was n't meaning to hurt Stoddard's feel- 
 ings," Watson said meekly. "I just didn't 
 think how it would look. Of course I like him 
 as well as ever, but now there 's so much I 
 can't talk over with him. You can't be quite 
 so intimate with a fellow when you 're in a 
 secret society and he 's not." 
 
 " Well, maybe you can't, but you 've got to 
 keep him from seeing it," insisted Harry. 
 
 Watson declared an intention of being more 
 discreet in the future, and Harry felt quite 
 virtuous. He believed thoroughly in being a
 
 52 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 good influence in the school. He even made a 
 point of going round among the members of 
 the Crown and telling them in an emphatic way 
 that they must not act like snobs and ignore 
 fellows who were outside the society ; he tried 
 to impress it on them that it was their duty to 
 be genial and friendly with every one. 
 
 " That 's what we Ve been this last week," 
 Tom Albree said bluntly. " That 's what 's 
 going to elect you president." 
 
 And at that Frank Windsor and one or two 
 others laughed, and Harry looked annoyed. 
 
 " You ought to be that way all the time," 
 he said, " not just when you want to get some- 
 thing out of people." 
 
 What with the virtuous consciousness of 
 being a good influence in the school and the 
 fresh security that Rupert's avowed purpose 
 not to contest the election gave him, Harry 
 was quite happy. He went about with a brisk 
 cheerfulness and a pleasant smile for the little 
 boys as well as the big ; he flattered a lot of 
 small second-formers by kicking a football 
 with them one day during the noon recess ;
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 53 
 
 he went round among the quiet, studious boys 
 of the fourth and fifth forms, urging them to 
 write for the " Mirror," of which he was ed- 
 itor, and inviting them to come to his room 
 and talk over with him subjects for stories 
 and essays. 
 
 Nat Belmont remarked to Francis Stoddard 
 that Harding was out " swiping " for votes ; 
 but this was hardly true. Harry's pleasant 
 face and kind and friendly manner were not 
 assumed for a purpose; they were natural to 
 him when he was as happy as he was now. 
 Everything seemed to be turning out just as 
 he would have it. Rupert's denial of any in- 
 terest in the election and failure to make any 
 active canvass soothed Harry's conscience and 
 raised his sanguine hopes. 
 
 The day before the election a thing took 
 place that contributed more largely than any 
 previous occurrence to his happiness. 
 
 The school was divided into two athletic 
 clubs, the Pythians and the Corinthians, each 
 of which had its football eleven. These two 
 elevens contested for the school championship.
 
 54 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Afterward the school eleven, which played 
 annually against St. John's, was picked from 
 these two teams. 
 
 Harry had been out every day, practicing 
 with the Corinthians, and although his room- 
 mate, Frank Windsor, was captain, Harry had 
 never been given much encouragement. But 
 when the list of the eleven was posted on 
 the school bulletin-board, he was thrilled to 
 find himself assigned to the position of right 
 end. Holder, against whom he had been play- 
 ing in practice, and who, he had supposed, 
 would be given the place, was written down 
 as substitute. 
 
 Harry turned away from the bulletin-board, 
 swelling inwardly with pride. This event cer- 
 tainly vindicated him as a candidate for an 
 athletic presidency. He had a glimpse of 
 Holder's face peering over the circle of boys 
 about the bulletin-board, and saw the shadow 
 of disappointment that settled on it ; and that 
 for an instant made him uncomfortable. 
 
 " But somebody 's always got to be disap- 
 pointed," he thought, as he walked away.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 55 
 
 He would have been less proud and happy 
 if he had heard the consoling speeches that 
 some of the boys round the bulletin-board 
 made to Holder. They charged Frank Wind- 
 sor indignantly with favoritism. 
 
 It was perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that 
 there was some truth in the charge when 
 Windsor came up, and drawing Holder to one 
 side, told him that even though he was down 
 only as substitute, he was sure of playing 
 through part of the game. 
 
 On a Saturday night the three upper forms 
 of the school gathered in the auditorium to 
 choose the president of the athletic association. 
 
 One of the masters, Mr. Eldredge, opened 
 the meeting by calling for nominations. There 
 was a moment of silence ; then Frank Wind- 
 sor rose and proposed Harry Harding' s name. 
 Tom Albree seconded it; and then Francis 
 Stoddard nominated Rupert Ormsby. There 
 were no other names proposed. The tellers 
 were appointed and the voting began. 
 
 Harry Harding, sitting in the front row with 
 Bruce Watson and Joe Herrick, tried to appear
 
 56 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 quite unconcerned. But as he turned round 
 over the back of his chair to talk with some 
 one behind him, his eyes were sparkling with 
 excitement and there was a self-conscious smile 
 on his face. 
 
 Rupert Onnsby, in the back of the room, 
 was being disorderly in a juvenile way. With 
 his foot up against the wall, he was jamming 
 a line of chairs together, while everybody 
 down the line resisted, and the two or three 
 fellows nearest him heaved with shoulders and 
 arms against his mighty back all of them 
 hilarious with laughter. 
 
 " Harry pretends he does n't care," said Nat 
 Belmont to Francis Stoddard, "and Rupert 
 Ormsby really doesn't care. That's what I 
 like about him ; he does n't give a hoot." 
 
 Mr. Eldredge rapped on the table for order ; 
 the tellers were ready to make their report. 
 When the room was quiet, one of them read : 
 
 " Total number of votes cast, 94 ; Ormsby, 
 39 ; Harding, 55. Mr. Harding is elected." 
 
 The applause that greeted this announce- 
 ment came mainly from the front part of the
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 57 
 
 room, where the Crown adherents were massed, 
 but it was loud and enthusiastic ; and when 
 boys began shouting, " Speech ! Speech ! " 
 Harry rose, blushing, and bowed. 
 
 Mr. Eldredge resigned the chair to him, and 
 Harry presided for the rest of the meeting 
 with a confiding shyness and embarrassment 
 that were rather winning. Frank Windsor was 
 elected secretary and Dick Judson was elected 
 treasurer ; and then the meeting adjourned. 
 
 Boys crowded up on the platform to con- 
 gratulate Harry, and flocked about him as he 
 made his way out of the hall. Rupert Ormsby 
 was among them, and gave his hand the 
 heartiest grip of any one ; and Harry said, 
 " Thanks, old man ! " very feelingly. 
 
 He sat up late in the schoolroom that even- 
 ing, writing to his mother and to Clark of his 
 election. The letter to Clark would follow 
 him half-way round the world, and reach him 
 probably somewhere in India. Harry knew 
 that it would please his brother, wherever he 
 might be. 
 
 When Harry was mounting the stairs of the
 
 58 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 dormitory to his room, he met Joe Herrick, 
 clad in a dressing-gown, rushing down to his 
 bath. Herrick flung an arm about Harry's 
 neck, and whispered : 
 
 " The gang is going to the Pie House to- 
 morrow afternoon to drink your health. You ' ve 
 got to come." 
 
 " Oh, we 'd better not," said Harry anx- 
 iously. " Why, if we 're caught, you know 
 what it means fired from school, maybe ! " 
 
 " The rector would never fire any one just 
 for that," replied Herrick. " Besides, it 's the 
 risk that will make the fun. And to-morrow 's 
 my birthday, and I 'm setting the crowd up 
 in your honor. They Ve all promised, and 
 you 've got to come after all they 've done 
 for you ! " 
 
 There was an unpleasant suggestion in that 
 which stung Harry, and he said, with reluc- 
 tance, " All right. I think it 's foolish, but I '11 
 come. I won't drink anything, though." 
 
 " Nobody 's really going to drink anything," 
 Herrick assured him. "Just a taste to go 
 round in your honor."
 
 By permission of The Youth's Companiui 
 
 'THE GANG IS GOING TO THE PIE-HOUSE TO-MORROW AFTER- 
 NOON TO DRINK YOUR HEALTH"
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 59 
 
 " All right," said Harry, and Herrick went 
 bounding in his slippers down the stairs. 
 Harry climbed the rest of the way with a less 
 joyous heart than that which he had had dur- 
 ing the first part of his ascent. He had never 
 been to the Pie House in his life, and he was 
 both ashamed and afraid at having pledged 
 himself to this violation of the school rules. 
 
 The Pie House, in spite of its innocent name, 
 had a doubtful reputation, and it was generally 
 understood that the three or four reckless and 
 daring youths who had visited it had done so 
 to indulge a taste for other things than pastry. 
 It was also generally understood that the pen- 
 alty for visiting it was expulsion from the 
 school ; and Harry lay awake in bed and miser- 
 ably pictured the consequences to himself and 
 to his mother and to Clark if he should be 
 caught. 
 
 The next morning he found all the other 
 members of the Crown in a whispering, nervous, 
 excited state over the expedition planned for 
 the afternoon. They had all succumbed to 
 Herrick's invitation. None of them had quite
 
 60 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 dared to hold out against it for fear of being 
 derided as a " softy," and now they were en- 
 gaged in reassuring one another. 
 
 Harry said lightly to Frank Windsor and 
 Tom Albree and Russell Stearns : 
 
 " I 'd hate to be snagged. It would n't be 
 much fun getting fired." 
 
 "Oh, a crowd like this would n't be fired," 
 declared Frank Windsor. " Why, they could 
 n't fire us all a crowd of the best fellows in 
 the school ten of us ! And if they don't 
 fire all, they can't fire one. The most they 'd 
 do to us would be to soak us with a whole lot 
 of Latin lines for two or three afternoons." 
 
 "I guess that's about right," Harry said 
 more cheerfully. "And if we don't really do 
 anything, I don't see the harm in looking into 
 the Pie House." 
 
 "I'm not going to touch a drop," Frank 
 Windsor said, " and none of you fellows who 
 are on the Corinthian team can break training. 
 Mind that!" 
 
 By giving such instructions Frank felt that 
 as captain of the team he was doing his duty.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 61 
 
 It was a fine October afternoon when the 
 members of the Crown started out, disconnect- 
 edly as usual, for their rallying place. But 
 instead of stopping at the sacred rock, they 
 continued on across the pasture into the 
 woods. They hurried single file along a path 
 for a quarter of a mile, and then came out 
 upon a lonely, back-country road. 
 
 " We 've got the start of everybody else in 
 school," said Joe Herrick. "No masters out 
 skulking will have got up as far as this yet, 
 so we 're all right going in and if we 're 
 careful we '11 be all right coming out." 
 
 After a time they came to a lonely, weather- 
 beaten house, with three scrawny horse-chest- 
 nut-trees growing in the yard. The shades 
 at the windows were discolored and torn, the 
 stone step at the front door sagged away 
 from the door-sill and left a gaping crev- 
 ice. Altogether, the Pie House did not look 
 very prosperous. But even in its dejected 
 appearance it filled ten boys with excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " One of you fellows stand down at the
 
 62 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 bend of the road and keep watch," said Her- 
 rick, " and the rest of you pretend to be 
 walking along. I '11 see about getting in." 
 
 Then, while Tom Albree stationed him- 
 self as outpost, Herrick entered the yard and 
 knocked on the door. 
 
 It was opened by a small, weak-looking 
 man with a furtive and dejected face. Her- 
 rick spoke to him a moment, and then turn- 
 ing, beckoned to the other fellows to come. 
 They crowded hastily into the house, into a 
 bare room with tattered wall-paper and bat- 
 tered chairs, and closed the door. 
 
 The sad little man, who seemed to have a 
 mean sort of quietness, set about serving them 
 without speaking a word. He brought out 
 a jug of cider and some glasses, which he 
 filled and passed in silence. 
 
 " He's got nothing stronger," said Herrick. 
 "But this is good hard cider, all right, and if 
 you drink enough of it, it will make you feel 
 pretty well." 
 
 "I don't think I'll take any," said Frank 
 Windsor. " You fellows that are playing foot-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 63 
 
 ball had better not take any ; it 's out of train- 
 ing." 
 
 "Shucks, Frank!" said Herrick. "I'm 
 giving this party, and I've got to drink with 
 my guests. Besides, a drop of apple-juice 
 won't hurt anybody. Just touch your lips to 
 it, anyway for the sake of a toast. Now 
 then, fellows, here 's to our athletic president, 
 president of the Crown, all kinds of a presi- 
 dent, Harry Harding ! " 
 
 They all raised their glasses and drank in 
 Harry's honor, and cried, " A-ay !" 
 
 Then Harry, quite excited and happy, held 
 aloft his glass, and said, " Here 's to our host 
 and his birthday ! " 
 
 But just at that moment Bruce Watson ex- 
 claimed in a frightened voice, " Look, fellows, 
 look ! " and crouching to one side, pointed out 
 of the window. 
 
 Doctor Vincent, the school physician, was 
 coming up the path to the house.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 rilHE keeper of the Pie House seemed al- 
 -*- most as much agitated as the boys. 
 
 " Keep still ! Keep still ! " he adjured them. 
 "It's the doctor come to see my sick wife." 
 
 The boys were all crouching in corners and 
 squatting on the floor to get below the level 
 of the very low window-sill in front of which 
 the approaching doctor must pass. The keeper 
 of the Pie House slipped out into the hall 
 and closed the door behind him. Albree, who 
 was nearest, reached up and turned the key in 
 the lock. 
 
 They all remained quite motionless, none of 
 them even daring to glance up at the win- 
 dows. They crouched with lowered heads, on 
 the chance that if Doctor Vincent should look 
 in he might not recognize them. 
 
 " We must n't move. In this rattletrap of a 
 house the least sound will be heard," Frank 
 Windsor warned them in a whisper.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 65 
 
 "S-sh!" said Harry. 
 
 The doctor was entering the hall. Through 
 the thin partition the boys could hear the creak 
 of the boards under his feet, and then his 
 cheerful greeting, " How are you, Shoop ? " 
 
 They heard everything with the most terri- 
 fying distinctness. There was not much relief 
 to the tension, even when they heard him pass 
 the door and go up the stairs. They knew that 
 they were prisoners as long as he remained in 
 the house. 
 
 In another moment they heard him in the 
 room above. After moving round for a while 
 he evidently seated himself in a rocking-chair 
 and rocked and rocked. 
 
 The boys cautiously, one by one, got them- 
 selves into more comfortable positions. 
 
 " Whew ! That was a narrow escape ! " 
 Herrick said, under his breath. 
 
 " Do you suppose Shoop will squeal on us? " 
 Albree whispered anxiously. 
 
 " No, he 'd have no object. " But in spite of 
 this assertion, they all felt very distrustful of 
 the furtive, mean-looking little man.
 
 66 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " We 're not out of the woods yet," Harry 
 whispered gloomily to Frank Windsor. " Sup- 
 pose the doctor makes a long call ? He may 
 keep us here too late for us to get to sacred 
 studies. Then what ? " 
 
 This was a possibility which had not been 
 considered, and its seriousness was admitted. 
 If they should be absent from the class which 
 the rector personally conducted, or even be late 
 to it, there would undoubtedly be a search- 
 ing investigation ; and even if this led to no- 
 thing, the punishment for the lapse would be 
 severe. 
 
 Frank Windsor looked at his watch. They 
 had three quarters of an hour leeway, and they 
 could at a pinch make the distance to the school 
 in fifteen minutes. 
 
 " If only Doctor Vincent's coachman were 
 not sitting out there ! " muttered Herrick. " It 
 would be easy enough to drop out of the win- 
 dow, run round the house, and get away. But 
 I suppose that coachman would tell." 
 
 "He'd probably yell out and give the 
 alarm," said Harry dejectedly.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 67 
 
 There seemed nothing for them but to wait 
 in patience and hope. 
 
 Meanwhile upstairs Doctor Vincent had con- 
 cluded his examination of his patient and had 
 given his prescription. He stayed on, talking 
 cheerfully with the woman, who was suffering 
 more from loneliness and overwork and ner- 
 vous depression than from any bodily ailment. 
 At last he rose and bade her good-by, but in- 
 stead of going immediately downstairs, he said 
 to her husband : 
 
 " Shoop, I want to have a few words in pri- 
 vate with you." 
 
 The man looked frightened. " She she 
 ain't dying, doctor?" he whispered. "Come 
 in here." He led Doctor Vincent into a room 
 across the hall. 
 
 " No," said the doctor. " She 's doing first 
 rate ; she '11 be all right in a few days. That 's 
 not what I wanted to talk to you about. As I 
 came past your windows downstairs, I looked 
 in, and saw that you had been entertaining 
 some guests." 
 
 He looked at Shoop sternly, and the keeper
 
 68 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 of the Pie House dropped his eyes in distress. 
 Then he glanced up with furtive appeal. 
 
 " I ain't doing no harm to those young 
 fellows, honest I ain't, doctor," he said. 
 
 " You gave the rector your word, Shoop," 
 Doctor Vincent replied, " that there should be 
 no more of this sort of thing. The school 
 promised to help you. The rector 's given you 
 employment, and he promised to do more for 
 you as long as you behaved yourself. You 
 gave him your word. You not only went back 
 on your word you Ve done it at a time when 
 you should have had nothing but gratitude to 
 Doctor Davenport. After Mrs. Davenport had 
 come up here herself and visited your sick wife 
 and done things for her ! I tell you, Shoop, 
 I have nothing but contempt for such a 
 fellow as you ! " 
 
 There was a flush on Snoop's weak face, 
 but now he looked at the doctor without fal- 
 tering. 
 
 "You're too hard on me, doctor; honest, 
 you are," he said earnestly. " I had n't a no- 
 tion of selling stuff to the young fellows no
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 69 
 
 more, and when they came this afternoon I 
 said so. But one of 'em explained it was his 
 birthday, and they just wanted to pretend, 
 anyway, they were having a a blowout ; and 
 I had nothing but cider in the house, doctor, 
 nothing but cider, honest and that not what 
 you might call real hard. So I thought there 
 could n't be much harm in just pourin' 'em 
 out a little of that. I've got rid of all my 
 other stuff. I'll take you down cellar and 
 show you, if you say so, doctor ; I '11 take you 
 in and show you what the young fellows have 
 been drinkin', if you don't believe me. But 
 it's the truth I'm tellin' you, and I didn't 
 go to break my word to Doctor Davenport 
 I did n't go to do it, honest." 
 
 " Very well," said Doctor Vincent, " I be- 
 lieve you. I believe you enough to make these 
 terms : You give me your word that hereafter 
 you '11 turn away any boys who come to you, 
 and that you '11 not sell them even cider, and 
 we '11 let this matter pass." 
 
 " I '11 give you my word, doctor honest," 
 said the man.
 
 70 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " All right. But remember! If you don't 
 keep it this time, the school's done with you." 
 
 Doctor Vincent went slowly down the stairs, 
 and then, with a faint smile on his face, walked 
 up to the locked door, and stood there, putting 
 on his gloves. He did this very deliberately, 
 enjoying the thought of the consternation he 
 must be causing the culprits within. 
 
 For a moment, kind-hearted man though 
 he was, he had a boyish impulse to open the 
 door, just for the fun of seeing how scared 
 they would be. But he contented himself with 
 chuckling at the thought as he left the house. 
 
 He climbed into the buggy and drove rap- 
 idly away, but at the bend in the road he 
 stopped his horse. Rupert Ormsby and Francis 
 Stoddard were passing, and Doctor Vincent 
 had an idea. 
 
 " Ormsby," he called, " may I have a word 
 with you?" And then, as Stoddard was con- 
 siderately walking on, he added, "No, you. 
 too, Stoddard, please." But he addressed his 
 words to Rupert. 
 
 " I Ve just been making a call at the Pie
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 71 
 
 House and there are some fellows there who 
 ought not to be. Now I don't like to report 
 boys. I think, anyway, that for fellows as old 
 as these are, the discipline ought to come from 
 among themselves. I had just a glimpse, but 
 I think some of them, anyway, are football- 
 players. I wish, Ormsby, that you'd be on 
 hand when they come out, and then pitch into 
 'em for breaking training and all that, you 
 know ; give them a good dressing down and 
 make them ashamed of themselves. I don't 
 intend to push the matter any farther. You '11 
 handle it for me ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed. It will be great sport. I love 
 to scold," said Rupert, and the boy and the 
 doctor laughed at each other in a way that 
 Francis Stoddard did not quite understand. 
 
 " You '11 have to keep a straight face or you 
 won't do any good," said Doctor Vincent. 
 
 " Oh, I '11 be harsh enough with them. If I 
 find any football fellows in the gang I will 
 work myself up into a perfect rage," Rupert 
 assured him. 
 
 " You ' d better be going along, then . They '11
 
 72 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 be coming out pretty soon." The two boys 
 touched their hats and the doctor drove rapidly 
 away. 
 
 Stoddard and Rupert walked on in silence, 
 and came in sight of the Pie House just as the 
 lawless revelers, who thought they had allowed 
 a sufficient time to elapse after the doctor's 
 departure, were emerging. Herrick and Albree 
 and Frank Windsor had already come out, and 
 two others were in the doorway ; and when 
 they saw the two figures approaching along 
 the road, they betrayed for an instant the 
 most ludicrous consternation. One of the boys 
 darted back into the house and banged the 
 door, and the others stood dismayed. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right, fellows ; it 's onlyOrmsby 
 and Stoddard ! " Herrick exclaimed, after a 
 moment, with contemptuous relief. 
 
 And at just the same moment Rupert was 
 saying to Stoddard : 
 
 " You 've never seen me really fierce ; you 
 watch me." 
 
 Stoddard did not know quite what to make 
 of the humorous gleam in Rupert's eyes, so
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 73 
 
 oddly followed by the heavy, determined set- 
 tling of his jaw. 
 
 Harry Harding and Bruce Watson and the 
 other members of the Crown came flocking out 
 of the Pie House. Rupert and Stoddard sat 
 down on the stone wall by the roadside and 
 awaited them. They approached with an air 
 of bravado. Coming out into the road, they 
 nodded to the two boys indifferently, and were 
 on the point of sauntering past, when Rupert 
 observed, in an audible tone : 
 
 " I see that the Crown has a new meeting- 
 place." 
 
 He got down from the wall, and in his most 
 leisurely manner and with his hands in his 
 pockets, but wearing an expression that was as 
 grave as that of the other boys was troubled 
 and resentful, he walked up to Frank Windsor. 
 
 " Look here, fellows ! " His voice had the 
 sharp, abrupt tone of command which they had 
 never heard from him before except on the 
 football field ; and reluctant though they were, 
 they stopped sullenly to listen. " Windsor and 
 Herrickand Harding and Albreeand Stearns ! "
 
 74 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 He enumerated the names with slow disdain. 
 " Five fellows who are on the two first elevens 
 
 five fellows who are candidates for the 
 school team ! And right in the middle of the 
 football season to sneak off and break training, 
 and run the risk of being fired from the school, 
 when you know how you 're needed to help 
 build up the school team ! I want to congrat- 
 ulate you five. I want especially to congratu- 
 late you, Windsor, as captain of the Corinthian 
 eleven, and you, Harding, as president of the 
 athletic association." 
 
 "We didn't really break training," said 
 Frank Windsor. " And they 'd never have fired 
 such a crowd of us." 
 
 " No, they 'd never have fired a crowd of the 
 best fellows in the school, as I think Harding 
 once described you to me," said Rupert. " Per- 
 haps not. But they would have suspended you 
 
 or put you on probation, anyway. You 'd 
 not have been allowed to play on any school 
 team. You must have known that, all of you, 
 and yet you deliberately ran the risk ran the 
 risk of crippling the school team and spoiling
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 75 
 
 its chances ! Five of the best fellows in the 
 school who would have bragged of their 
 loyalty ! Five of our first eleven men, the Co- 
 rinthian captain, the athletic president and 
 all that noble, noble institution, the Crown ! " 
 He swept them with a look of scorn. Then, 
 after a moment of silence, he walked slowly 
 past them with his hands in his pockets and 
 the faintest smile of contempt curling his lips, 
 and as he passed he looked squarely into each 
 sober, downcast face. Not one of the boys 
 answered him a word, and he walked on and 
 left them. 
 
 Stoddard accompanied him in a subdued 
 silence. When they got out of sight and hear- 
 ing of the others, Rupert turned to him with 
 a broad grin. 
 
 " How about it ? Was I fierce all right ? " 
 Stoddard looked at him wonderingly. Then 
 he answered, with a faint, half-comprehending 
 smile : 
 
 " Well, I should say ! I 'm scared yet." 
 Rupert chuckled. " It was more fun than 
 a goat. To see 'em all lined up there like little
 
 76 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 kids, waiting for a licking ! Once I thought I 
 was going to laugh and spoil it all." 
 
 " But were n't you did n't you mean what 
 you said to them ? " 
 
 " Oh, I felt quite badly about their actions," 
 Rupert replied. And then he became more 
 serious. "Why, yes, if I'd just seen them 
 coming out of the Pie House and the doctor 
 hadn't given me any tip, I 'd have had to talk 
 to them, of course sort of sad and sorry be- 
 cause they did n't have more sense. That 's the 
 way I 'd have felt and talked. But when 
 the doctor told me to light into them well, 
 it was easy enough. Maybe it was better for 
 them. Anyway, it was more fun for me. I 
 guess they won't break training again in a 
 hurry. Poor old Frank Windsor and Harry 
 Harding ! Did you notice them ? They looked 
 as woebegone as if they 'd just been fired from 
 the school." 
 
 " Some of 'em looked pretty mad," Stoddard 
 said. "Herrick was mad." 
 
 Rupert laughed. "Well, I don't wonder," 
 he acknowledged. "I guess maybe I was pretty
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 77 
 
 insulting. We 'd better be hurrying along now, 
 to get back in time for sacred studies." 
 
 Harry Harding "flunked" his recitation in 
 the Bible lesson that Sunday afternoon. He 
 could not remember for what Gibeon was dis- 
 tinguished. He stood for a few moments in 
 silence and with a reddening face, and then 
 began, "He was a great general." 
 
 "That will do," said the rector, and the class 
 tittered. The rector made a mark on his form 
 list with deliberation. He had a way of im- 
 parting to such a note of delinquency a dis- 
 mal solemnity. Harry, the prize scholar of 
 the class, sat down. 
 
 Rupert answered the question, and Harry 
 was enraged to find that Gibeon was a city, 
 and that the sun had stood still over it a whole 
 day. It seemed to him that he had always 
 known that. He had of course just confused 
 it with Gideon. 
 
 It was hardly fair that he should get zero 
 for the lesson, and be humiliated besides, for 
 so small a slip. And then the fact that Rupert 
 had answered so correctly and completely irri-
 
 78 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 tated him. Rupert seemed to have a faculty 
 for being always right and for making a 
 fellow who made a slip of any kind feel 
 needlessly small. Harry sat through the rest 
 of that recitation in a mournfully resentful 
 mood. 
 
 After the class was dismissed he avoided 
 Rupert; but later in the day, just before sup- 
 per, he came upon him and Doctor Vincent 
 talking together in the hall. 
 
 Harry tried to slip by unnoticed; but Ru- 
 pert, who had been laughing over something 
 that he had been telling the doctor, turned 
 and nodded with a casual good-humor, and 
 said, "Hello, Harry!" 
 
 That evening, after the prayers in the com- 
 mon room, when the boys were getting ready 
 to go down to the study for the hour of read- 
 ing and letter-writing, Rupert, standing by 
 the door, grabbed Harry's arm. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " you first eleven men 
 are all candidates for the school team. You 
 want to make it if you can, Harry. I 'm going 
 to keep watch of your playing from now on."
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 79 
 
 Harry felt that it was a kind and friendly 
 and encouraging speech, and that for Rupert, 
 at least, the unpleasant episode of the after- 
 noon was all past and forgotten. So his heart 
 was softened, and he walked meekly and alone 
 down to the study, thinking that, after all, 
 Rupert was a mighty good fellow. 
 
 Joe Herrick, however, was implacable, and 
 that evening expressed himself to Harry bit- 
 terly about Rupert. 
 
 " He 's the kind that loves to go round spy- 
 ing on a fellow," he declared. "He's a goody- 
 goody boy ; he 's always parading to show how 
 much better he is than anybody else; and 
 I don't care if he is a good football player, 
 he 's a stiff. He 's bigger and stronger than 
 me, and when I play end against him in the 
 game between the Pythians and Corinthians 
 next Saturday, I suppose he '11 do me up ; but 
 would n't I like to show him how to play 
 football! I bet it would take some of the 
 superiority and conceit out of him if I only 
 could. I 'm going to practice hard this week 
 all right, and may be I '11 surprise him yet
 
 80 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 the chump ! He thinks because he 's captain 
 of the school eleven he owns the earth ! " 
 
 Herrick went on raving in this intemperate 
 fashion, while Harry attempted to put in a 
 mild, persuasive defense of Rupert. 
 
 " Oh, you 're too good-natured, Harry ! " said 
 Herrick scornfully. " You ought n't to forgive 
 a fellow so easily that 's been a chump. If I 
 only get a good chance," he added, as he and 
 Harry separated in the corridor of the dormi- 
 tory, " I '11 show him yet ! "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 T TARRY laced up his canvas jacket with 
 -*--- trembling fingers. His hands were 
 clammy, and he had a scared feeling that to- 
 day he was more brittle than usual. But he 
 was not going to let any one see that he was 
 scared. 
 
 All the boys of both elevens were dressing 
 in the athletic house, and there was not by any 
 means the noisy chatter that preceded the prac- 
 tice on an ordinary afternoon. The talk was 
 in low tones and the laughter was subdued. 
 
 Two boys who were to be opponents in the 
 line-up were dressing side by side, and boast- 
 ing humorously of what they were going to 
 do to each other, but generally the atmosphere 
 of the athletic house this afternoon was busi- 
 ness-like and serious. 
 
 Frank Windsor went round, nervously 
 touching one after another of his eleven, and 
 saying, "Hurry up, old man! Hurry up!"
 
 82 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 His eyes shone with excitement and his cheeks 
 were red ; he looked flurried. Over in a corner 
 Rupert Ormsby, with nothing on but one red 
 stocking, sat patiently picking a knot in his 
 shoestring and whistling in a subdued key. 
 
 Joe Herrick, all dressed, sat on a bench 
 across the room and looked at Rupert's muscles. 
 They were brown and big and active; there 
 was something unpleasantly suggestive in the 
 way they quivered and stood out in Rupert's 
 arms when he was engaged in even the mild 
 exercise of picking a knot. 
 
 "No joke having to go up against a big 
 brute like that," thought Herrick. " But if I 
 could only put it all over him ! " 
 
 Frank Windsor clapped his hands and cried, 
 " All out, Corinthians ! " 
 
 Rupert, drawing on his other stocking, 
 looked up with a smile. " We '11 be with you 
 in a moment," he said. 
 
 It was a snapping, bright October day, with 
 a north wind blowing and clouds flying up 
 over the brilliant woods that surrounded the 
 field. Harry, running out into this clear sharp
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 83 
 
 air, felt a little stronger than he had been 
 when he sat in the dressing-room and waited. 
 
 The Corinthians, who were spread along 
 the nearer side of the field, raised a cheer for 
 their team, and Harry, as he followed Frank 
 Windsor and jumped over the rope, felt very 
 proud. 
 
 Frank Windsor warmed his eleven up at 
 once by giving them signal practice. Harry 
 crouched and ran and went through all the 
 motions with enthusiasm. It was not at all 
 bad fun, this harmless showing off before a 
 crowd of sympathetic spectators. 
 
 In the midst of it a cheer broke from the 
 boys on the farther side of the field the 
 Pythian cheer ; and at that Harry, who had 
 just crouched in the mimic line-up, swallowed 
 hard. The moment had come. Rupert Ormsby, 
 carrying the ball, burst through the throng 
 of Corinthian spectators, and followed by his 
 team, ran out on the field. 
 
 " Now then, fellows ! " Frank Windsor said, 
 and his team gathered round him to receive 
 the last instructions. Harry glanced out of the
 
 84 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 corner of his eye at the other eleven, who 
 were romping down toward one of the goals. 
 
 Two masters in white sweaters stepped over 
 the rope. One of them called the captains to 
 one side and tossed a coin. 
 
 Then Frank Windsor came running back 
 to his team. " Our ball ! " he said. " Get ready, 
 fellows." 
 
 Pythians and Corinthians were cheering 
 wildly while the two teams scattered to their 
 places. Then the cheer was hushed. Harry 
 stamped on a whitewashed line nervously. 
 His heart was beating so hard that it seemed 
 to bother his breathing. 
 
 The umpire blew his whistle, the ball went 
 sailing down the field, and Harry rushed after 
 it. Halleck of the Pythians charged down on 
 him to put him out of the way of the runner 
 who had caught the ball. But Harry dodged 
 quite cleverly, and the next instant had flung 
 himself headlong and made the first tackle of 
 the game. It was a good play, and when he 
 got up and heard the Corinthian cheering and 
 found that he was still all right, he ran to his
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 85 
 
 position at left end with a wild satisfaction 
 and eagerness. 
 
 He had been surprised himself at making 
 the play. His success drove fright out of his 
 breast, and in its place came a fierce determi- 
 nation. " I guess I '11 be good enough to make 
 the school team ! I guess I '11 show everybody 
 it was all right to make me athletic presi- 
 dent!" 
 
 His opponent, a fifth-former named An- 
 drews, was a green player also. Pythians and 
 Corinthians were alike expecting to see some 
 ragged playing on that end of the line. The 
 really skillful play would be on the other end, 
 where Rupert Ormsby and Joe Herrick were 
 matched against each other. 
 
 What Harry and his opponent, however, 
 lacked in experience, they made up in zeal and 
 aggressiveness ; and they had to be continually 
 warned by Mr. Eldredge, the referee, because 
 of offside play and holding. Twice the Corin- 
 thians had to forfeit ten yards on account of 
 Harry's offending in these respects. 
 
 But he was throwing all his strength into
 
 86 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 the contest, and really doing better than he 
 had ever done in practice. To Frank Windsor's 
 surprise he was having a little the better of 
 Andrews, and the Corinthian captain, when he 
 finally got the ball on a fumble, made a short 
 run round Harry's end, aided by the green 
 player's interference. 
 
 Then the Corinthian crowd on the side lines 
 began to throw up their hats and yell, and say 
 to one another that Harry was a real " find," 
 after all, and Windsor had known what he was 
 about in putting him on the eleven. 
 
 Their enthusiasm was brief, however; for 
 on the next two plays there was no gain. The 
 Corinthians had to kick, and the Pythians ran 
 the ball back to the middle of the field for 
 Joe Herrick, who should have got down and 
 tackled the runner, came instead with an un- 
 expected crash against Rupert Ormsby, and 
 lay for an instant quite dazed by the collision. 
 
 When he got up, he was sullenly thinking 
 that he owed Rupert another grudge. It was 
 an absurd idea, but he believed that Rupert 
 had knocked him over with unnecessary pub-
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 87 
 
 licity and violence, to shame him before the 
 crowd. 
 
 And in the next mix-up, when Rupert made 
 a dash toward tackle to help in the interference 
 for a "centre" play, he received a sudden 
 heavy blow in the side just under the heart ; 
 and he went down in the scrimmage with the 
 breath quite knocked out of him. 
 
 He got up feeling a little weak, and walked 
 round for a moment before going to his place. 
 
 When he did go to it, he did not settle down 
 at once, but stood for a moment looking de- 
 liberately into Herrick's eyes with a faint smile. 
 Foul play was something that had never been 
 countenanced in these school games, and the 
 boy who had now committed it was receiving 
 from his victim as much surprise as scorn. 
 
 The humiliation of having to meet such a 
 look from Rupert and of realizing that he had 
 not been deceived as to the source or intention 
 of the blow did not improve Herrick's temper. 
 He dropped his eyes and crouched in position, 
 and muttered, " Oh, play ball ! " 
 
 Rupert made no answer. He got into posi-
 
 88 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 tion, and the Pythian quarter-back gave a sig- 
 nal that meant a rush through right guard. 
 
 " Wait ! " called Rupert, straightening up. 
 
 He ran to the quarter-back and whispered in 
 his ear, then back to his place again. And in 
 another moment another signal was shouted. 
 Then, as the ball was snapped back, Herrick 
 was hurled to one side like a pillow, and when 
 he picked himself up he found that the Pyth- 
 ians had made ten yards round his end. 
 
 He took his place in the line. Rupert stood 
 opposite him, with his eyes sparkling and a 
 broad, good-natured smile on his face. And 
 Herrick appreciated fully that Rupert had 
 had his revenge. 
 
 The mild and legitimate character of it 
 made it no more tolerable to the victim ; and 
 there was a deep, smouldering wrath in his 
 heart, a bitter resentment of Rupert's greater 
 strength, an angry wish to get even by taking 
 some sharp advantage if the opportunity rose. 
 
 In the occasional breathing spaces as the 
 game went on Herrick set his mind to de- 
 vising some means of getting even of com-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 89 
 
 passing the advantage which would enable him 
 to handle Rupert as he deserved. Unfortu- 
 nately Joe Herrick was not a stupid boy. 
 
 The two teams were pretty evenly matched. 
 The Corinthian guards and tackles were 
 stronger than their opponents, and often broke 
 through and prevented the end runs which 
 the Pythians had been expecting to make 
 with their fleet half-backs, and with Ormsby 
 to assist at right end. 
 
 When the first half was two thirds over, and 
 neither team had scored, and the ball was still 
 in the middle of the field, the Pythian sup- 
 porters on one side, in their orange and black 
 caps, and the Corinthians on the other, in 
 their blue and white caps, seemed trying to 
 win the game with cheers. 
 
 Harry Harding and Tom Andrews were 
 having an excited battle. Of the two boys, 
 Andrews had the less nervous temperament. 
 As the game progressed he became gradu- 
 ally more roused to its demands. 
 
 Harry had thrown himself with all his 
 strength and violence into it at the outset,
 
 90 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 and now he was beginning to weaken. He 
 staggered round between plays, gasping for 
 breath, and called for water, and sometimes 
 lay on the ground after a scrimmage until the 
 full time limit had expired. He had never 
 been so used up in practice, and after each 
 play he would lie wondering how much longer 
 the half was going to last. 
 
 And all the time Andrews seemed to be 
 growing stronger. Fortunately, Perry, the Co- 
 rinthian left tackle, was able to handle his op- 
 ponent and give Harry some support besides. 
 And Harry, who was not unaware of this, had 
 never felt more grateful to any one in his life. 
 
 Then, suddenly, the Pythians flashed their 
 trick play. Rupert Ormsby darted from his 
 position, and Andrews ran from his. They 
 met behind the quarter-back, and nearly all 
 the Pythian eleven ran with Andrews. 
 
 But it was Rupert who had taken the ball, 
 and he and the quarter-back shot out round 
 Harry's end, while nearly the whole Corin- 
 thian team was struggling to break up the 
 attack on the other side of the line.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 91 
 
 Perry sprang out and upset the quarter- 
 back, giving Harry a chance to make the 
 tackle; and Harry dived headlong with his 
 arms outstretched. But he had misjudged 
 the distance, and missed Rupert by a yard, a 
 glaring blunder for all the Corinthians to see. 
 And Rupert went racing on his way, while 
 all the Pythians streamed after him down the 
 side line, tossing their orange and black caps, 
 waving sweaters, and shouting : 
 
 " Touchdown ! Touchdown ! " 
 
 Harry picked himself up. He stood for a 
 moment, uncertain in his mortification what 
 to do. But no one noticed him. Then he 
 began to run in pursuit of the other players, 
 who were now careering far ahead down the 
 field. 
 
 He had not gone ten yards when a wilder 
 outburst of cheers from the Pythians, a sud- 
 den universal up-flinging of caps and coats 
 and sweaters announced to him that it was 
 touchdown indeed. The two elevens were 
 piled up together near the goal. 
 
 Harry trotted up dejectedly as the pile was
 
 92 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 being pulled apart by umpire and referee. 
 Frank Windsor got out from the bottom, and 
 seeing Harry, ran up to him. 
 
 " That 's your fault ! Don't you let them 
 get round your end again ! " he said sharply. 
 Harry felt hurt that Frank Windsor should 
 speak to him in that way. 
 
 The ball had been carried two feet beyond 
 the line. Harris, the Pythian centre, took it 
 out, and Rupert kicked the goal. Rejoicing 
 over this achievement was expressed in the re- 
 iterated, carefully separated shout: "Pyth- 
 i-an ! Pyth-i-an ! Pyth-i-an ! " reiterated with 
 indefinite monotony. It grated on Harry's 
 nerves. 
 
 Frank Windsor, with the ball under his arm, 
 walked angrily out to the middle of the field. 
 Then he called his team round him. 
 
 " You fellows have got to play ball ! " he 
 said. " You 've got to hold them and you 've 
 got to tie that score. They had no business 
 to get that touchdown, if you fellows out on 
 the right had had your eyes open and played 
 the game."
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 93 
 
 The sudden unexpected reverse had put him 
 into a bad temper, and as he finished speaking 
 he gave Harry another withering look. He 
 kicked a hole in the ground with his heel and 
 put the ball down. 
 
 " Get to your places," he said. 
 
 Then he drew back a dozen feet, and when 
 the whistle sounded, he ran forward and sent 
 the ball flying far up the field. 
 
 Harry had much the same chance as at the 
 beginning of the game to distinguish himself 
 by a diving tackle. But he was hurled to the 
 ground by Andrews, who came against him 
 full tilt with a leather-protected shoulder. 
 And the runner carried the ball back thirty 
 yards from where he had received it. 
 
 As the Corinthian eleven lined up amid more 
 Pythian shouting, Frank Windsor clapped his 
 hands, and cried desperately : 
 
 " Stop them now ! You 've got to stop them ! 
 Put some life into it ! " 
 
 Frank Windsor, right half-back, was play- 
 ing close to the line, and giving his particular 
 attention to the support of Joe Herrick. Be-
 
 94 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 tween them they managed to stop two attempts 
 at end runs without gain. 
 
 After the second effort, Herrick, foresee- 
 ing that on the next play the Pythians would 
 kick, ran round to Harry Harding. It was his 
 chance to put into execution the scheme for 
 getting even with Rupert that his cunning 
 mind had devised. 
 
 " Andrews is always playing offside," he 
 whispered. "I can see all down the line. 
 Insist on Mr. Eldredge's watching him on 
 the next play." 
 
 Then he ran back to his position. 
 
 Harry, exhausted and excited, was in a state 
 of mind open to any such suggestion. He 
 cried out breathlessly : 
 
 " Wait, Mr. Eldredge ! Mr. Eldredge, sir ! " 
 
 "What is it?" said the referee. 
 
 " I wish you 'd watch Andrews, please. I 
 wish you 'd come to this end of the line and 
 watch him a while. He 's always offside." 
 
 " I 'm not ! " declared Andrews indignantly. 
 
 "Will you watch him, please, sir?" insisted 
 Harry.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 95 
 
 "I'll watch you both," Mr. Eldredge an- 
 swered, and he stepped quickly out to that 
 end of the line. " Come, play ball ! " He blew 
 his whistle. The Pythian full-back retreated 
 to catch the ball and kick. 
 
 It was passed to him; he caught it and 
 kicked it high and far. Andrews and Rupert 
 Ormsby, the two ends, plunged forward to rush 
 down the field and make the tackle. 
 
 But as Rupert charged past, Herrick thrust 
 out one foot, and with a quick turn tripped 
 him and sent him headlong. Then, without 
 waiting, Herrick ran to get into the scrim- 
 mage. 
 
 Eastman, the quarter-back, who had caught 
 the ball, was struggling forward, pushed and 
 pulled by three or four others over the pros- 
 trate bodies of Pythians. Herrick hurled him- 
 self into the press, and in another instant went 
 down with the heap. 
 
 When he crawled out from it, he ran to 
 his position. But Rupert Ormsby was not there 
 to face him. 
 
 Herrick looked up the field, and saw Rupert
 
 96 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 writhing on the ground, where he had been 
 tripped. Two of the Pythian team were already 
 bending over him ; a third was running to the 
 side line, calling for Doctor Vincent. 
 
 With a sickening fear and remorse Joe Her- 
 rick hurried forward to see what he had done. 
 
 Rupert's face was white and contracted in 
 his effort to bear the pain in silence. His lips 
 were tightly clinched, and as he turned from 
 side to side, his right leg, stretched out upon 
 the ground, lay motionless. Joe Herrick stood 
 by, afraid to speak, and Rupert, glancing up 
 at him, smiled feebly a moment, and then turned 
 away his head. 
 
 Herrick recognized in that smile the same 
 expression with which Rupert had conveyed 
 his contempt for the fellow who would strike 
 a foul blow. Rupert knew. Herrick stood 
 by, heavy-hearted, and had nothing to say. 
 
 Doctor Vincent brushed past him and knelt 
 beside the injured boy. 
 
 " The ankle," Rupert said, and the doctor 
 unlaced the shoe on the motionless foot. 
 
 " Now, then," he said gently, and he began
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 97 
 
 to draw off the shoe. Rupert closed his eyes 
 and set his teeth with a groan. Andrews raised 
 his head and shoulders upon a pillow of 
 sweaters. 
 
 " Never mind, old man," he murmured, and 
 while Rupert lay with the perspiration oozing 
 on his white forehead, Doctor Vincent drew 
 off the shoe. 
 
 Herrick watched the doctor gently roll down 
 the boy's stocking. He saw the unnaturally 
 twisted ankle, and heard Doctor Vincent say, 
 "I'm afraid it's broken, Rupert;" and then 
 a sudden faintness assailed him. 
 
 He walked away from the group, and kneel- 
 ing on the ground, pretended to tie a shoe- 
 string, hanging his head low until the blood 
 had run into it and revived him. When he 
 looked up, they were carrying Rupert from 
 the field. 
 
 Harry Harding came up to Herrick soberly. 
 " How did it happen, Joe ? " he asked. 
 
 "I don't know," said Herrick. 
 
 "What awfully hard luck for Rupert!" 
 Harry murmured. " Captain of the school team
 
 98 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 and everything to have a thing like that 
 happen to him ! " 
 
 Herrick made no answer. 
 
 Pythians and Corinthians had alike been 
 sobered by the accident. Many of them had 
 trailed off across the field to find out the extent 
 of Rupert's injuries, or, with more morbid 
 curiosity, to see how he looked as he was being 
 borne away. Now they were returning slowly, 
 without enthusiasm. 
 
 But the game had to go on. Harris took 
 Rupert's place as captain of the Pythian team, 
 and summoned Tom Albree to play right end. 
 Albree was inexperienced and weighed ten 
 pounds less than Herrick, but to the surprise 
 of every one he seemed from the first to be 
 holding his own against him. 
 
 Herrick showed a lack of enthusiasm and 
 aggressiveness. He moved slowly, and when 
 Frank Windsor shouted at him, " Wake up, 
 Joe ! Get into the game ! " he made no answer. 
 Sullenness showed in his face. 
 
 Five minutes after Rupert had left the 
 game the Pythians scored their second touch-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 99 
 
 down, and in much the same way as they 
 had made their first on a long end run out- 
 side of Harry Harding. 
 
 Frank Windsor tackled the runner behind 
 the goal-line and got up, fuming. He walked 
 over to Harry. 
 
 "You'd better lay off," he said. "Hol- 
 der ! " He beckoned with his hand. 
 
 As the substitute ran out upon the field, 
 Harry, smarting under the disgrace, with a 
 thick feeling in his throat and tears in his 
 eyes, walked to the Corinthian side line. He 
 put on his sweater and seated himself deject- 
 edly to watch the rest of the game. He 
 thought of how he had started in, hoping to 
 distinguish himself, to justify his election to 
 the presidency, even to make the school eleven 
 and he could hardly keep back the tears. 
 
 The half was soon over. The Corinthian 
 players came trooping to take up their sweat- 
 ers. Then Francis Stoddard stepped out from 
 the crowd and went up to Joe Herrick, who 
 was standing close in front of Harry. 
 
 " Do you know what you are?" said Stod-
 
 100 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 dard. There was an intensity of feeling in his 
 suppressed voice that caused Harry, overhear- 
 ing him, to look up. 
 
 " No. What? " asked Herrick, with a scorn- 
 ful laugh. 
 
 " You 're a dirty, cowardly, tricky player ! " 
 said Stoddard, still in a low, deliberate voice. 
 "You tripped Rupert. You broke his leg. 
 You know it." 
 
 Herrick looked at Stoddard's white face in 
 sullen silence. 
 
 "You say things like that," he answered 
 at last, " and you '11 get your head smashed. 
 You need n't think that just because you 're 
 so puny you can say anything without get- 
 ting hurt." 
 
 " You ought to be ruled off the field for 
 keeps," Stoddard retorted, and turned his 
 back. 
 
 Harry and three or four others of the 
 eleven, who had been listening in amazement, 
 crowded up to Herrick. "What's he talking 
 about?" "Trip who up?" "You didn't, 
 did you, Joe?"
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 101 
 
 " No, of course not," Herrick answered im- 
 patiently. " The kid 's nutty." 
 
 The reply satisfied the others; but Har- 
 ry's thoughts jumped back to that moment 
 when Herrick had urged him to insist on 
 having Mr. Eldredge 's attention. The inci- 
 dent suddenly assumed a peculiar significance ; 
 and Harry had but to look again at Herrick's 
 face to feel certain that Stoddard's charge was 
 true, and that he himself had been deliber- 
 ately used in a plot to cripple Rupert.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A FTER denying Stoddard's accusation, 
 -*--*- Joe Herrick stood for a few moments 
 with his hands tucked up under his red sweater, 
 staring with a frown across the field at the 
 athletic house. The other members of the 
 eleven were mingling with the crowd, receiv- 
 ing the condolences and exhortations of their 
 supporters, but Herrick stood alone. He had 
 few friends outside of the Crown, and the 
 members of that society who were Corinthian 
 sympathizers were already clustered round 
 Frank Windsor, offering him advice, criticism, 
 and encouragement. 
 
 Harry Harding was so sore over his failure 
 that he did not join this group or seek to make 
 himself in any way conspicuous. He was sat- 
 isfied to sit on the ground unobtrusively with 
 the substitutes. The swift suspicion of Her- 
 rick which Stoddard's words had roused in 
 him had caused him for a moment to forget
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 103 
 
 his own unhappiness ; and he looked up at 
 the lonely figure with a wondering interest, 
 trying from the boy's face to fathom the truth. 
 
 Herrick started toward the athletic house, 
 into which Rupert had been carried. But as 
 he approached, an open carriage, drawn by 
 two horses, came spinning down the road and 
 stopped in front of the door. Herrick and 
 some other boys ran forward and stood by 
 while Rupert, wrapped in blankets, was borne 
 out and placed gently on the cushions. 
 
 He looked pale, but he smiled and waved 
 a hand at the group of his friends, who re- 
 sponded with a feeble cheer and cries of 
 "Good luck, Rupe!" "You 're all right!" 
 Doctor Vincent got in beside him and the 
 carriage drove away. 
 
 Herrick had said nothing and had not 
 joined in the cheer. He walked with lagging 
 steps back to the football field. About him 
 boys were deploring the hard luck that had 
 befallen Rupert and the school. With a 
 broken leg he could never get round for the 
 game with St. John's; and what was the
 
 104 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 school eleven to do without its captain and 
 best player ! 
 
 Herrick avoided talking with any one ; he 
 strolled down to one of the goals, where during 
 the intermission two small boys were practi- 
 cing drop-kicks, and stood there, looking on. 
 They were very proud to have such a distin- 
 guished spectator, and did their best to show 
 off ; but he was really paying no attention to 
 their efforts. 
 
 When the second half began, it was a dif- 
 ferent Herrick who went into the game. The 
 listlessness and sluggishness which had char- 
 acterized his playing after Rupert had been 
 hurt had disappeared ; and Tom Albree, who 
 during the intermission had been flattered by 
 the Pythians for the way he was standing up 
 against the veteran, was pushed to one side, 
 and foiled and upset until in his chagrin he 
 was almost ready to cry. 
 
 " Herrick 's playing the game of his life ! " 
 one of the Corinthian substitutes said to Harry 
 enthusiastically. " I believe we '11 make this a 
 close game yet."
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 105 
 
 " We would n't if Rupert Ormsby were still 
 in it," Harry replied. 
 
 There was a bitterness in his answer that 
 seemed to denote a lack of enthusiasm for the 
 new vigor shown by his team. His friend looked 
 at him in surprise, and supposed that Harry's 
 bitterness was due to his removal from the game. 
 
 Two long runs round Albree's end, a few 
 successful plunges through the centre, and 
 Frank Windsor at last carried the ball across 
 the line for the first Corinthian touchdown. 
 Harry jumped up with the other substitutes, 
 and capered and waved his arms and yelled ; 
 but it was really only a regard for external 
 decency that prompted him. With the heavi- 
 ness in his thoughts caused by his own failure 
 and by Herrick's treachery, and most of all 
 by Rupert's injury, there was no room for 
 rejoicing. He shouted again when Frank 
 Windsor kicked the goal, and again when, 
 with only one minute left to play, the Corin- 
 thians rushed across the line for their second 
 touchdown. Frank Windsor kicked this sec- 
 ond goal, tying the score.
 
 106 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 It was a tame outcome, and after the Co- 
 rinthians had cheered their team for the up- 
 hill struggle, they flocked away as silently as 
 the Pythians, who were cast down by their 
 failure to achieve the expected victory. 
 
 With the game over, the boys fell to dis- 
 cussing among themselves the chief feature 
 of it Rupert's injury and the effect it 
 would have upon the school eleven. 
 
 Herrick freed himself from the three or 
 four friends who came up to congratulate him 
 on his playing, and turned to Harry. 
 
 " Seen Stoddard anywhere ? " he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Yes, there he is with Nat Belmont." 
 
 "Come along," said Herrick. Pulling Harry 
 by the arm, he led him up behind Stod- 
 dard, and then called in a peremptory voice, 
 " Stoddard ! Look here a moment, will you ? " 
 
 Francis turned, hesitated, and then, leaving 
 Belmont, came back slowly to meet the two 
 players. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked, in an unfriendly 
 voice.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 107 
 
 "I wanted to tell you that you're right 
 and I lied to you," Herrick said. " I did trip 
 Ormsby. That 's how he got hurt. That 's all 
 I wanted to tell you. Now you can go back 
 to your friend." In spite of his confession 
 there was a scornful defiance in his voice. 
 
 "I knew you were lying," said Stoddard 
 quietly. "I saw you trip him." 
 
 He walked away and rejoined Belmont. 
 
 " It will be all over the school in half an 
 hour," Herrick said with bitterness, " and I 
 suppose nobody will believe that I hadn't any 
 thought of hurting him. I did n't know it 
 was going to break his leg." 
 
 Somehow, at this moment, Harry liked his 
 friend better than he had ever done. There 
 was more than bitterness in Herrick's voice ; 
 there was emotion, even a suggestion of 
 tears. 
 
 " No, of course you did n't know," Harry 
 said soothingly. " You only lost your head " 
 
 " No, I did n't lose my head, either. I did 
 it on purpose. I could n't handle him and 
 that 's the way I thought I 'd get even."
 
 108 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " Well, you did n't mean to hurt him." 
 
 " I did mean to play foul, though and 
 that's enough for most people. I don't 
 care. They can talk and think what they 
 please. After this I don't say a word ahout 
 it to any one. I guess I can stand anything 
 that 's coming to me." 
 
 Harry was silent a moment. "Aren't you 
 going to tell Rupert ? " he asked. 
 
 "He knows already. I saw it in his eye 
 when he lay and looked up at me." 
 
 "Maybe he doesn't know you're sorry." 
 
 Herrick kicked sullenly at the turf. 
 " Yes, I suppose I '11 let him know that. But 
 I won't let anybody else know it," he added 
 defiantly. " I '11 ignore it ; I don't care what 
 they say or do. I had to tell you and that 
 kid, Stoddard because I'd lied to you and 
 him." 
 
 Harry could say nothing, but he felt sor- 
 rier for Joe Herrick than ever and liked 
 him better. 
 
 In the athletic house, while Herrick was 
 dressing, the other players on the team
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 109 
 
 congratulated him and joked with him on 
 having saved the day. Frank Windsor, as 
 captain, was quite bubbling over with happi- 
 ness. He slapped Herrick on the back. 
 
 "There's no doubt at all, Joe!" he 
 exclaimed gayly. "You're the hero of the 
 occasion. You 're the one that did it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I 'm the one," Herrick responded 
 grimly. 
 
 A few hours later the story of Herrick's 
 foul play was known throughout the school. 
 
 Francis Stoddard had declared it in his 
 first indignation to some of his friends. Then 
 he had reported Herrick's confession to Nat 
 Belmont and others. By supper-time the boys 
 who had played on the Corinthian eleven 
 were confronted with the sensational charge. 
 
 Frank Windsor laid it excitedly before 
 Herrick himself. 
 
 "I have nothing to say," was Herrick's 
 answer. Then when Frank Windsor pressed 
 him to deny the charge, he said : 
 
 " Ask Harry Harding, if you want. He 
 knows."
 
 110 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Harry reluctantly admitted the truth, and 
 then urged all the extenuating circumstances. 
 Herrick had not meant to hurt Rupert ; he 
 had had a long grudge against him which 
 he ought not to have had, to be sure; he 
 had been no match for Rupert in the game ; 
 and he had done what was often done in the 
 big college games when the umpire was not 
 looking. 
 
 The members of the eleven and the mem- 
 bers of the Crown, to whom Harry made this 
 appeal, were not disposed to judge Herrick 
 harshly. But it was different with the mass of 
 the boys. They remembered only that Herrick 
 had played foul, and had crippled the captain 
 of the school eleven, and they shunned him. 
 
 He for his part did not at once alter his 
 habitual manner. He remained, as he had al- 
 ways been, proud and defiant, and his atti- 
 tude did not tend to make the other boys 
 more lenient. 
 
 But he showed a different side to Rupert 
 Ormsby. The day after the game he was taken 
 into the room of the infirmary where the
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 111 
 
 patient lay in bed, suffering the severe pain 
 that had developed from the setting of the 
 broken bone. 
 
 " How are you getting on, Ormsby ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, pretty well, I guess, thank you," 
 Rupert answered cheerfully. 
 
 Herrick was silent a moment, standing by 
 the bed, and Rupert said, " Won't you sit 
 down?" 
 
 " Of course you know how it happened," 
 Herrick said, not heeding the invitation, " and 
 you must know, too, how sorry and ashamed 
 I feel. If I 'd supposed it would mean any- 
 thing serious like this " 
 
 " Oh, that 's all right." Rupert stretched out 
 a forgiving hand. " We won't talk about it. 
 I hear that you played the game of your 
 life the second half and kept us from pull- 
 ing off the championship, after all." 
 
 " You would n't have thought I was doing 
 much if you 'd been opposite me," Herrick 
 replied, embarrassed. " Oh, it 's good of you 
 to try, Ormsby, but you can't let me down
 
 112 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 easy. I played dirty football, and I hurt you 
 badly, and I 've spoiled your last year bere at 
 scbool, and well, I appreciate your being so 
 good about it, but I feel pretty low down just 
 the same." 
 
 Rupert laughed. 
 
 " I used to think myself you were pretty low 
 down, Herrick, but I don't any more. Now 
 I tell you what you do to square yourself. 
 You 've put me out of the game for good. It 's 
 up to you to see that the fellow who fills my 
 place does it in such a way that St. Timothy's 
 never knows the difference." 
 
 "I don't know how I'm to do that," said 
 Herrick despondently. 
 
 " Why, I '11 tell you. You 're the best end in 
 the school, and you 've got to teach some other 
 fellow how to play the other end. There are 
 Andrews and Holder, and even Harry Harding 
 not much material to draw from, but I '11 
 expect you to turn out a good end just the 
 same." 
 
 Herrick was silent for a moment. Then he 
 said:
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 113 
 
 "Thank you very much, Ormsby. I'll do 
 the best I can. And I hope you won't be 
 laid up for long." 
 
 " I '11 be out, I guess, to see what kind of an 
 end you develop for the game with St. John's." 
 
 Herrick went away feeling an honest ambi- 
 tion, wishing to look on fellows with a kindlier 
 eye. But it was pretty hard when he found 
 them surly or suspicious, and knew that they 
 were commenting on him as a " mucker," a 
 dirty player, a mean, tricky cheat, who would 
 stop at nothing. 
 
 He was grateful to Harry Harding, who 
 stood by him, and to the other fellows in the 
 Crown, who were still friendly ; but he knew 
 that throughout the school the sentiment 
 toward him was that of Francis Stoddard, 
 unforgiving and contemptuous. 
 
 Rupert sent a message to Frank Windsor, 
 asking him to take charge of the candidates 
 for the school eleven and act temporarily as 
 captain; and accordingly Windsor posted a 
 notice the next day, announcing the first prac- 
 tice.
 
 114 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " Ormsby says that you '11 coach the ends," 
 Windsor said to Herrick, as they walked down 
 to the athletic house together ; and Herrick 
 felt stirred by this formal recognition of his 
 responsibility. 
 
 Out of all the candidates who presented 
 themselves, Windsor picked two elevens. They 
 began to play without any clear understanding 
 as to who besides Windsor was in authority. 
 Harry Harding was on one end, opposing Nat 
 Belmont, a hot-headed, nervous boy, who was 
 trying his best to be "aggressive," but who 
 knew very little about football. Herrick saw 
 Harry break past him and make a tackle. 
 Then on the next line-up Herrick ran in. 
 
 " Here, Belmont," he said, "wait till I show 
 you how to block your man off " 
 
 But Belmont was already angered by his 
 failure and excited by the game. He turned 
 on Herrick with resentment for such interfer- 
 ence. 
 
 " Thanks. I guess I don't need your help," 
 he said. 
 
 Herrick bit his lip, but controlled himself.
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 115 
 
 " I just wanted to show you " 
 
 " Yes, I know there are some things you 
 can show me but I 'd rather not learn 
 them ! " Belmont retorted scornfully. 
 
 Herrick turned. " Windsor ! " he called. 
 
 Frank Windsor came running over from the 
 other side of the line. 
 
 " Will you please explain to Behnont that 
 Ormsby has asked me to coach the ends ? " 
 Herrick said. 
 
 " What 's the matter with Belmont ? Say, 
 Belmont, you do as you 're told. Herrick 's 
 running the ends, and you pay attention to 
 him. Now mind." 
 
 Windsor went back to his position, clap- 
 ping his hands and crying, " Play ball ! " 
 
 Belmont submitted angrily. He believed 
 that Windsor was managing things to suit 
 himself, and that he had given authority to 
 Joe Herrick because he was a fellow member 
 of the Crown. He did not believe that Ru- 
 pert Ormsby had ever delegated any such au- 
 thority to the fellow who had meanly tripped 
 him and broken his leg. He obeyed Herrick's
 
 116 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 orders and straightened up to hear his criti- 
 cism and advice, but he listened sullenly, and 
 Herrick was conscious of the boy's resent- 
 ment. He exercised his authority as little as 
 possible. He did not go shouting and clamor- 
 ing round like Frank Windsor, who had a 
 great idea of the inspiriting quality in mere 
 noise, and he did not jump into a scrimmage 
 and begin scolding and denouncing whenever 
 somebody made a bad play. 
 
 It pleased him afterward when Harry Hard- 
 ing came up to him and said : 
 
 " You know, Joe, you 're a mighty good 
 coach ! I believe I could learn something 
 about the game if I could have you always 
 looking after me." 
 
 " Thanks ! " Herrick answered, and he 
 added, a little sadly, " I guess maybe you 're 
 the only one that feels that way." 
 
 Nat Belmont certainly was unsympathetic. 
 After the practice, still smarting under the 
 humiliation of being coached by a fellow 
 whom he despised, and indignant over the 
 way in which Frank Windsor was managing
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 117 
 
 affairs in the interests of the Crown, he went 
 to the infirmary. 
 
 He was admitted to the room where Rupert 
 sat, propped up by a window, rapping on the 
 pane and waving a hand at the boys who hap- 
 pened to be walking past. Belmont started in 
 at once upon his grievance. 
 
 " Oh, hold on ! " Rupert interrupted him, 
 with a laugh. " Don't be so hard on 'em, 
 Nat. It's all my fault. I asked Frank 
 Windsor to run the eleven, and I particularly 
 asked Joe Herrick to coach the ends." 
 
 " Then if you did that, Rupe, I 've got to 
 tell you what I suppose you have n't heard 
 about Herrick " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I 've heard it. You mean about 
 his tripping me. I heard it from him. He 
 came and told me. And I have reasons for 
 thinking better of Joe Herrick than I ever did 
 before. You let him coach you, Nat, and see 
 if you don't think better of him, too." 
 
 Nat Belmont was nonplussed. He did not 
 like to surrender his grievance ; but he was 
 not an ill-natured boy, and when he was given
 
 118 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 time to think, he had no tendency to be un- 
 just. 
 
 "Well," he said, "if you feel that way 
 about it," he laughed as he rose to go, "I 
 guess I'll have to tell Herrick I made a 
 mistake." 
 
 He did so, with an added word of apology. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," said Herrick. "I 
 don't blame you." And both this speech 
 and the embarrassed manner of it surprised 
 and touched Belmont. He went round telling 
 fellows about the change in Herrick, and by 
 his enthusiasm trying to repair the injury that 
 he had done. 
 
 Francis Stoddard, however, ordinarily the 
 gentlest and mildest of boys, remained cynical. 
 
 " Oh, he knows he must show a decent side 
 to make up for what he did," Stoddard de- 
 clared. " It 's just like Rupert to forgive him 
 so easily ; but I don't." 
 
 Belmont, however, held to his opinion of 
 Herrick's sincerity, and a thing happened 
 which made him think better of Frank 
 Windsor, too. At a meeting of the candidates
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 119 
 
 for the eleven, Frank read a letter from 
 Rupert, tendering his resignation and express- 
 ing the feeling that since he himself could not 
 play, some one else should be chosen captain. 
 
 " When he told me this," Frank continued, 
 " I did n't say anything except that I 'd lay 
 the matter before you fellows. But now I say 
 that we all refuse to accept Onnsby's resigna- 
 tion. He can be our captain even if he can't 
 stir from his room. He can advise us and help 
 us, and I say that we tell him so and refuse 
 to let him resign." 
 
 " Second the motion," said Joe Herrick, in 
 his gruffest voice. 
 
 The refusal to accept Rupert's resignation 
 was unanimous. Nat Belmont had to admit 
 that it was generous of Windsor to have pro- 
 posed this action, for if it had not been taken, 
 he would undoubtedly have been elected Ru- 
 pert's successor. 
 
 When Belmont reported Herrick's act in 
 seconding the motion, Francis Stoddard had 
 only a sneering comment : " Trying to square 
 himself with the crowd."
 
 120 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " Oh, well," Belmont answered, " when a 
 fellow 's trying to be decent, why can't you 
 let him?" 
 
 Stoddard flushed at the reproof, and re- 
 frained thenceforth from merciless remarks. 
 As the days went by and he had a chance to 
 observe personally the improvement in Her- 
 rick's demeanor, and to come a little more 
 often under the influence of Rupert's tolerant 
 attitude, his hostility relaxed ; and at last one 
 day, meeting Herrick alone in the corridor of 
 the dormitory, he stopped on a sudden im- 
 pulse, and said : 
 
 " I have n't been treating you very decently; 
 I 'm sorry. 
 
 Herrick looked surprised and then embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 "Well," he said, after a moment, "I wasn't 
 blaming you much." 
 
 After that they met and walked and talked 
 together without much constraint. 
 
 Meanwhile Herrick had been working faith- 
 fully to fill the responsibility with which Rupert 
 had charged him. He had picked on Holder
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 121 
 
 as the most promising player for the vacant 
 end position, and day after day he coached 
 him patiently, and tried to put " spirit " into 
 him. It was " spirit " that Holder seemed to 
 lack ; he was naturally rather slow. Under this 
 careful tuition he was improving, and Herrick 
 seemed himself, through teaching, to learn. 
 When he went into the practice he played 
 better than he had ever done before. Harry 
 Harding and Andrews were having a close 
 race for the position of first substitute; Nat 
 Belmont had been left behind. The team was 
 working together harmoniously. Frank Wind- 
 sor was doing better as Rupert's representative 
 than he had done as captain of the Corin- 
 thians, and he seemed to be better liked. Once 
 more a feeling of confidence began to prevail 
 throughout the school. The boys began to 
 say that even without Rupert they could beat 
 St. John's. 
 
 It was rumored that Rupert, lying in bed, 
 had devised some startling tricks which were 
 to be the destruction of the enemy, and that 
 the daily council which the eleven held in his
 
 122 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 room was given chiefly to the rehearsal of 
 these plays. 
 
 "He's surely captain just the same as he 
 always was," Frank Windsor said one day, on 
 emerging from one of these conferences. 
 
 And when, on the day of the great game, 
 the two elevens, St. John's in blue jerseys, St. 
 Timothy's in red, ran out upon the field, and 
 the cheers for both rose in mad excitement, 
 challenging one another, gayly defiant, the 
 enthusiasm of even that moment was less than 
 that which burst forth an instant later. For 
 an open carriage, in which sat Rupert Ormsby 
 and another, swept out from the woods road, 
 and at once the whole line of St. Timothy's 
 spectators broke and rushed, shouting, to meet 
 it rushed and lined up again at the end of 
 the field behind the goal-posts, where the car- 
 riage stopped. 
 
 " Rah, rah, rah, Ormsby ! " they shouted 
 again and again. 
 
 It was the first time since his accident that 
 Rupert had been outdoors, and he looked on 
 his friends now with his face flushed and his
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 123 
 
 eyes shining. He laughed, and hoisting a 
 crutch in the air, waved it in acknowledgment 
 of their cheers. 
 
 The boy sitting heside him in the carriage 
 a boy with a dark, handsome face, and older 
 than Rupert looked out on the crowd and 
 laughed too. 
 
 " It's Phil Ward !" exclaimed Harry Hard- 
 ing, who in his football clothes had run over 
 to see the excitement. He turned to Bruce 
 Watson. "It's Phil Ward! He was here at 
 school with Clark. I did n't know that Rupe 
 knew him ! He was quite a fellow in college, 
 too. He and Clark roomed together always. 
 He used to play on Clark's team." 
 
 The game was about to begin. The boys 
 ran back along the side line, and the two elev- 
 ens separated to their places.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 rilHE chief reliance of St. John's was on 
 -*- their full-back, Hall Durham, who could 
 outpunt by fifteen yards any one on the St. 
 Timothy's team. The St. Timothy's ends and 
 backs had been, therefore, specially prepared 
 to meet a kicking game ; theirs was the chief 
 responsibility for making it ineffective. 
 
 Eastman, the quarter - back, and Frank 
 Windsor had given a large part of each day's 
 practice to catching punts. They were not 
 likely to muff or fumble, but whether they 
 would be able to run with the ball after catch- 
 ing it would depend entirely on the defensive 
 work of the two ends. If this proved inferior, 
 St. Timothy's chances would be slim ; simply 
 by kicking, St. John's could force her oppo- 
 nents back and back and it was known that 
 Durham was almost as good at kicking goals 
 from the field as he was at punting. 
 
 As soon as they got the ball, St. John's
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 125 
 
 started in to test the efficiency of their kicking 
 game. Durham sent a splendid punt, high and 
 far ; but Holder and Herrick managed to delay 
 the opposing ends just enough to give little 
 Eastman a good start, and to enable him to 
 dodge the first flying tackle. 
 
 He ran the ball back twenty yards, and there 
 was great cheering from the St. Timothy's 
 side, where the result of this first kick had 
 been awaited with apprehension. 
 
 The two boys in the carriage behind the 
 northern goal-posts watched the play with keen 
 eyes, and commented on it from time to tune. 
 
 " That fellow who 's in your place handles 
 his man pretty cleverly," said the older boy. 
 
 " Oh, Joe Herrick ! Yes, he 's all right. 
 It 's the other end that I think may weaken. 
 Holder 's a green player, but he 's doing well 
 so far. How do you think they compare with 
 your old eleven, Phil ? " 
 
 Ward smiled. "After five years it's pretty 
 hard to say. If you were in the game, Rupe, 
 I might see somebody who was the equal of 
 Clark Harding, but I don't just now."
 
 126 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Rupert laughed. "See anybody as good as 
 Philip Ward?" he asked teasingly. 
 
 " Oh, about eleven. Fourth down ! Neither 
 side seems to gain much by rushing with the 
 ball" 
 
 " Durham 's going to kick again," Rupert 
 predicted, and they both looked up the field 
 in silent anxiety. The next moment there was 
 a shout from St. John's, and Rupert uttered 
 an exclamation of chagrin. 
 
 " Threw Windsor back a yard. Holder let 
 his man through like a shot ! " he muttered. 
 "Now if we aren't able to gain, and have 
 to kick " 
 
 He said it all so moodily, resting his chin on 
 his hand, that the older boy, glancing at him, 
 smiled. A moment later, with St. Timothy's 
 shouting, Rupert's face cleared. Windsor had 
 made a twenty-yard rush through the centre. 
 
 "That puts us out of danger tempora- 
 rily," Rupert said. " But I 'm afraid that Hol- 
 der will make more such mistakes." 
 
 " Is he the best you 've got ? Who 's his 
 substitute?"
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 127 
 
 " Harry Harding." 
 
 "Oh! Clark's brother?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I remember seeing him once ; but he 
 used to be a light little thin kid." 
 
 " He 's not very big now." 
 
 " Is he as good a fellow as Clark ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I never knew Clark. But 
 Harry's a mighty good fellow. If it's safe 
 I 'd like to put him in the last few minutes of 
 the game. It would please him so much." 
 
 " He ought to be a good fellow," Ward 
 said musingly. " Clark thinks everything of 
 him, and from what I hear has done every- 
 thing for him. I guess, Rupe, that if you were 
 to put him in for a few minutes, being a 
 Harding, he 'd make good." 
 
 "He'll probably have a chance," Rupert 
 answered. 
 
 Then, because St. Timothy's had the ball 
 and seemed to be making, little by little, pro- 
 gress up the field, the talk between the two 
 boys ceased, and they followed the game 
 with a more intense interest. Up to the St.
 
 128 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 John's thirty-yard line so far and no far- 
 ther did St. Timothy's work their toilsome 
 way. Then they lost the ball, and again Dur- 
 ham kicked. 
 
 The object of the St. John's strategy be- 
 came more apparent to Rupert and Ward. 
 Resting during the first half on a defensive 
 game, they hoped to tire out their opponents. 
 Then in the second half they would open up 
 their hitherto unrevealed attack. And as the 
 game went on, although the St. Timothy's goal 
 was never seriously threatened, Rupert's face 
 grew anxious. When the half ended, neither 
 side had scored. 
 
 The St. John's eleven trotted off the field 
 and entered the athletic house, which had been 
 hospitably placed at their disposal. Instead of 
 following them, the St. Timothy's players 
 wrapped themselves in the blankets that the 
 substitutes flung about them, and then, accom- 
 panied by the great mass of their supporters, 
 went up to the carriage in which their captain 
 sat. Then Frank Windsor turned and ad- 
 dressed the crowd.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 129 
 
 "Move back, all you fellows!" he said. 
 " Nobody but the eleven and the substitutes 
 wanted here. Everybody else get back." 
 
 He waved his arms, and three or four other 
 players stepped out and began waving their 
 arms, until the crowd had retreated, abashed. 
 Then the team gathered close about the car- 
 riage. 
 
 " You 're doing well, fellows," Rupert said 
 to them, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. 
 " You 're holding 'em mighty well and you 
 have n't shown up any of your trick plays 
 yet. Tilden, your man was getting the jump 
 on you there the last few minutes. You want 
 to be a little quicker; but that was good, the 
 way you broke through on that last kick. 
 Holder, try to stiffen up your end a bit. Some- 
 times it was pretty ragged ; but you 're coming 
 up to the scratch all right." 
 
 So he went down the list of players, criticis- 
 ing them when it was necessary, and then salv- 
 ing the criticism with some appreciative word, 
 applauding enthusiastically without criticism 
 when he could, and making each one in turn
 
 130 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 feel, through some quality in his voice and the 
 look in his eyes, that the interest with which he 
 had been watching the player was not merely 
 that of a captain, but also that of a friend. 
 
 When he had finished his comments, he 
 laid his hand on his companion's arm. 
 
 " Phil Ward here ought to be able to give 
 you some points," he said to the team. " He 
 played on St. Timothy's five years ago, 
 with Clark Harding and Skilton and those 
 fellows, and you all know he's had two 
 years on a 'varsity team since. Phil, won't 
 you talk to them?" 
 
 Ward laughed, and putting his hand on 
 Rupert's shoulder, stood up. He was a tall, 
 handsome, dark-faced fellow, with black eye- 
 brows that met above his nose. His expression 
 seemed determined, and might sometimes be 
 severe, but now there was a pleasant twinkle 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "I haven't much to say," he answered, 
 " after hearing your captain talk. He seems 
 to have covered the ground. I thought you 
 fellows played mighty well that half. I don't
 
 l..\- pi-rmissKiii ill Tin' Youth's Companion 
 
 THERE WAS A PLEASANT TWINKLE IN HIS EYES

 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 131 
 
 know just how you could have played better. 
 But just the same, it was n't good enough. 
 This second half you've got to do better. 
 Every one among you must be a little better 
 than himself. Then that way, all together, 
 you can make up for not having your captain 
 in the game." 
 
 He patted Rupert's shoulder and smiled, and 
 the eleven and the substitutes clapped in a way 
 that showed they had taken his speech to heart. 
 When he had sat down, Harry Harding, trail- 
 ing his red blanket, came round behind the 
 carriage and up to the side on which Ward was. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Ward?" he said 
 shyly. " I guess you don't remember me. I 'm 
 Harry Harding." 
 
 " Of course I remember you ! " cried Ward, 
 reaching out his hand. " You 've grown a good 
 deal, but I 'd know you anywhere for Clark's 
 brother. What do you hear from him ? " 
 
 " The last letter I had was written from 
 Cairo a month ago," said Harry. "He and 
 Archer Sands were going up the Nile." 
 
 " I 've heard from him since then, I think.
 
 132 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 I '11 see you later and give you his letter. I 
 guess they 're wanting you now." 
 
 The St. John's team was coming out of the 
 athletic house. It was time to be returning to 
 the field. 
 
 The second half revealed on both sides a less 
 cautious and conservative style of play, and 
 was, by contrast with what had gone before, 
 sensational. 
 
 At the beginning, little Eastman caught the 
 ball on the kick-off, and ran it sixty yards down 
 the field, dodging and squirming out of the 
 very arms of the St. John's tacklers; and St. 
 Timothy's went delirious with joy. 
 
 Then the next moment the hero of this bril- 
 liant run, too excited perhaps by his achieve- 
 ment, fumbled the ball, and a St. John's 
 player fell on it. St. John's lined up in a for- 
 mation that bewildered St. Timothy's, quickly 
 executed a trick, and sent their left half-back 
 and left tackle skirting along one side of the 
 field for a forty-yard run. 
 
 They lined up quickly and tried the trick 
 again ; but Herrick's mind had solved it, and
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 133 
 
 he burst into the core of the formation and 
 threw the runner back for a loss. 
 
 Then St. John's kicked, and St. Timothy's 
 returned the kick ; and back and forth in the 
 middle of the field the two elevens struggled. 
 The time slipped by. Rupert Ormsby kept 
 glancing nervously at his watch. 
 
 " Well," he said, in a voice that was un- 
 decided between relief and disappointment, 
 "they're holding 'em, anyway. And there 
 can't be more than five minutes left." 
 
 St. John's tried a mass play against the St. 
 Timothy's centre, and suddenly, while the two 
 elevens were jammed together, the ball rolled 
 jauntily, unconcernedly, out from the scrim- 
 mage. 
 
 Joe Herrick, pushing on the outside, saw it 
 first, made a leap, and caught it up from the 
 ground. The next moment, with it tucked 
 under his left arm, he was racing up the field, 
 up toward the carriage in which Ward and 
 Rupert Ormsby sat. 
 
 The St. Timothy's spectators rushed yell- 
 ing, along the side line. Ward stood up in
 
 134 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 the carriage, crying, " Come on ! Come on ! " 
 Rupert hoisted a crutch, and shouted while he 
 waved it. 
 
 But swift runner though Herrick was, the 
 St. John's quarter-back was swifter, and head- 
 ing diagonally up the field toward him, he 
 gradually overhauled him, and at last, fifteen 
 yards from the goal-line, hurled himself head- 
 long through the air and dragged Herrick 
 down. 
 
 It was the most daring and the prettiest 
 tackle of the day ; and at that the St. John's 
 spectators swept up the field, swinging their 
 caps and flags and cheering as defiantly as St. 
 Timothy's were shouting joyously. 
 
 The St. John's captain rushed about among 
 his men, slapping their backs, imploring them 
 to stand firm. Frank Windsor was likewise 
 going from one to another of his team, whis- 
 pering what might be the magic word. 
 
 Then the teams lined up. Eastman, the 
 quarter-back, had an inspiration. 
 
 " Fellows," he said, in a sharp voice, " Rupe's 
 waiting for you just beyond the line."
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 135 
 
 Then he stopped and gave the signal. St. 
 Timothy's charged forward and made a gain 
 of three yards, and there was more wild shout- 
 ing, and again Rupert was waving his crutch. 
 
 " You got near him that time ! " cried East- 
 man, as the elevens lined up. "Mind, he's 
 waiting for you ! " 
 
 This time the attack was so desperate and 
 concerted that it made ten yards, and the St. 
 Timothy' s cheer did not cease even when the 
 players got to their feet, but continued and 
 continued, the leaders of it having worked 
 themselves into a frenzy. 
 
 And now, with only two yards separating 
 them from the goal-line, with Ward standing 
 up in the carriage and shouting, and Rupert 
 gesticulating wildly with arm and crutch, 
 Eastman made himself heard : 
 
 " You 're going to shake hands with Rupe 
 after this play ! " 
 
 He shouted the signal that meant Perry at 
 right tackle was to open up a hole. 
 
 And Perry responded to the call. He 
 charged against his opponent furiously, and
 
 136 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 in the same instant Dennison, the fifth-form 
 half-back, carrying the ball under his arm, 
 came plunging through, and fell across the 
 goal-line. 
 
 While the St. Timothy's spectators cheered 
 and pranced and waved their flags, the players 
 slowly got to their feet. The referee came up 
 and looked at Dennison, who still lay, em- 
 bracing the ball, a few inches across the line. 
 The referee nodded, and then Dennison and 
 the St. John 's player, who had been hugging 
 him desperately, rose. 
 
 The St. John 's team walked disconsolately 
 to the goal and ranged themselves under it, 
 panting, with downcast heads. The St. Timo- 
 thy's players were leaping and slapping one 
 another and tumbling about on the field. 
 
 Rupert Ormsby lay back in the carriage 
 with a serene smile of contentment. Then he 
 thought of something, and sat up. 
 
 " Phil," he said to his companion, " don't 
 you want to go down there and tell Harry 
 Harding for me that he 's to go on in Holder's 
 place?"
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 137 
 
 Ward alighted from the carriage and ran to 
 where Harry was standing with a group of 
 the substitutes. He tapped him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Ormsby says you 're to take Holder's place 
 now," he said. 
 
 " Oh, he does ! " Harry cried, in a voice 
 quivering with excitement and delight. He 
 tossed off his blanket, into the arms of two 
 fellows who were already congratulating him. 
 "Right now?" 
 
 " Yes," Ward answered, with a laugh. "And 
 go in and play like Clark." 
 
 Dennison was holding the ball and Perry 
 was getting ready to kick the goal when Harry 
 ran out on the field. He said a word to Frank 
 Windsor and turned to Holder, who shook 
 hands with him cheerfully and then walked 
 over to the line of applauding spectators. 
 Their applause rose in another moment to a 
 great height when Perry kicked the goal. 
 
 " And only one minute more to play ! " 
 Ward said to Rupert, as he climbed again into 
 the carriage. " That 's what one of the lines- 
 men told me. Oh, we Ve got 'em licked ! "
 
 138 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 In the remaining minute St. John's secured 
 possession of the ball just once, and tried a 
 run round Harry's end. He hurled himself 
 recklessly into the interference, and by a com- 
 bination of luck and judgment got his arms 
 round the half-back who was carrying the 
 ball, and dragged him down before he had 
 gained a yard. 
 
 A moment later, as the elevens were lining 
 up, the timekeeper blew his whistle. Harry 
 had the distinction of making the last tackle 
 of the game. 
 
 After a cheer for their defeated opponents, 
 who returned it bravely, the St. Timothy's 
 eleven rushed up the field and gathered close 
 beside Rupert's carriage. Behind them, shout- 
 ing and tossing their flags, assembled the 
 proud, victorious non-combatants. Frank 
 Windsor stood up on the step of the carriage. 
 
 " Now then, fellows," he said, swinging one 
 arm enthusiastically and at that he lost his 
 balance and slipped from the step to the 
 ground, and the crowd laughed. 
 
 But the next moment he had climbed up
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 139 
 
 again, as earnest as ever. " Now then, fellows, 
 before you go in to dress, one cheer three 
 times three for Captain Ormsby ! One, two, 
 three ! " 
 
 Every St. Timothy's boy joined in that 
 cheer. Rupert turned red and laughed, and 
 then said something to Ward. And when the 
 cheer was finished, Ward rose to his feet. 
 
 " Fellows," he said, " I say we cheer every 
 man who played on the team to-day. First, 
 left end" He glanced down inquiringly at 
 Rupert, who said, " Herrick." 
 
 " Three times three for Herrick ! " cried 
 Ward ; and so he went down the list of play- 
 ers, and the St. Timothy's crowd stayed and 
 helped him cheer them all, and last of all 
 Harry Harding. 
 
 Then the gathering broke up. The members 
 of the eleven ran to the athletic house ; the 
 other boys formed in column, arm in arm, and 
 marched away toward the school, whistling 
 the school song. And the St. John's boys 
 who had come to see the game went strag- 
 gling away very quietly.
 
 140 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 "Well," said Phil Ward to Rupert, "you 
 did it, and I congratulate you." 
 
 " Did nothing ! " Rupert answered ; and 
 Ward suddenly recognized that the boy, in 
 spite of all his happiness over the triumph of 
 his eleven, was having at this moment his own 
 private sorrow. So while they drove slowly 
 away Ward sat in silence, allowing his com- 
 panion to master this sudden bitterness. Then, 
 as the carriage was turning into the road 
 through the woods, the older boy said : 
 
 " Would you mind stopping here and wait- 
 ing for me a few moments, Rupert ? I'd like 
 to go into the athletic house and say a word 
 to Clark's brother." 
 
 "Ah 1 right," Rupert answered, in a voice 
 that was quite cheerful. " Wish I could go 
 with you. Stop here a few moments, please, 
 Patrick." 
 
 Ward opened the door of the athletic house, 
 and stood a moment, confused by changes in 
 the place since the days when he had used it, 
 yet pleasantly conscious that the spirit of it 
 was the same.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 141 
 
 The hot, damp reek of the great bathroom, 
 from the open doors of which clouds of steam 
 were issuing, the noisy, echoing voices of the 
 boys, the heaps of dirty jerseys and moleskin 
 trousers and heavy, cleated shoes lying about 
 on the floor, the open lockers, in which cloth- 
 ing was crowded with varying regard for neat- 
 ness, and, most of all, the boys themselves, 
 loudly discussing, so earnest that they were 
 forgetting to dress, forgetting, some of them, 
 even to rub themselves dry with their towels, 
 these were the facts that somehow touched 
 Phil Ward's heart and made him think of the 
 time when he had been such a boy. 
 
 He looked about for Harry Harding, but 
 saw no face that he recognized. In one corner 
 a boy, stripped to the waist, lay flat on the 
 floor, while another bent over him, kneading 
 his back and rubbing it with alcohol. Ward 
 stepped up and inspected the two ; neither of 
 them was Harry. 
 
 Over by the scales eight or ten naked fel- 
 lows who had finished rubbing themselves 
 down were waiting in line to see how much
 
 142 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 weight they had lost in the game. Harry was 
 not among them ; and indeed, as Ward looked 
 about on the boys, deprived of their distin- 
 guishing colors, he could not tell who be- 
 longed to St. John's, who to St. Timothy's. 
 
 He stepped to the door of the great steam- 
 ing bathroom, where members of both elevens 
 were still fraternizing luxuriously under the 
 showers, carrying on incoherent conversations 
 in loud, echoing voices ; and as he stood here, 
 Harry came out, dripping, wringing the water 
 from his hair. 
 
 " Hello ! " said Ward, and Harry looked up 
 at him from under his wet locks. " Congrat- 
 ulate you." He held out his hand. 
 
 "Thanks," said Harry. "My hand's all 
 wet" 
 
 " I don't mind a little thing like that. Now 
 you'd better get to work and rub yourself 
 down." 
 
 And while Harry, in accordance with this 
 advice, seized a towel and began to polish 
 himself to a bright pink, Ward stood by and 
 made comments on the game. At last he said :
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 143 
 
 " Well, you 're a credit to the family, 
 Harry. You did all that Clark himself could 
 have done. I guess I '11 have to write to him 
 about you. See you later ; see you at the ban- 
 quet to-night." 
 
 Then he went to rejoin Rupert, and he left 
 Harry feeling very proud and happy. 
 
 Frank Windsor and Harry walked up to- 
 gether to their room. Frank was tired, and 
 stretched himself out on the window-seat; but 
 Harry had not played long enough for that 
 and soon found he was restless. He went out 
 to look for friends and talk with others about 
 the great victory. Downstairs in the com- 
 mon room a group was gathered, and Bruce 
 Watson, spying Harry, darted out from it, 
 seized him, and dragged him forward. One 
 after another they shook hands with him. 
 
 " That was a great tackle of yours, Harry." 
 " Too bad you were n't in the game longer." 
 " I bet you 'd have done better than Holder." 
 Such were the pleasant remarks that they 
 showered upon him. And more than ever 
 now he felt that he had won his spurs. He
 
 144 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 was an athlete really ; and for the first time 
 he felt with a serene satisfaction that his title 
 to the office to which he had a month before 
 been elected had been fairly earned. 
 
 Another honor was to be his that night. 
 While the boys were talking, Mr. Eldredge, 
 the master who had assisted in coaching the 
 eleven and who always presided at the ban- 
 quet which closed the football season, came up. 
 
 "Harding," he said, and he beckoned 
 Harry to one side, " I want to give you warn- 
 ing. We expect to hear from you at the ban- 
 quet to-night in answer to the toast, 'The 
 Substitutes.' " 
 
 "Oh," said Harry, pleased and excited, 
 "I'll see if I can think up something. But 
 I have n't much time, have I, sir ? " 
 
 "We shan't expect a great oratorical ef- 
 fort from you," Mr. Eldredge answered, with 
 a smile, as he turned away. 
 
 But Harry, with his imagination already 
 stirred by this new opportunity, thought it 
 quite possible that he might surprise Mr. El- 
 dredge.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE banquet was not to begin until eight 
 o'clock. Harry, sitting at his desk, in- 
 vited ideas for a speech. 
 
 " Substitutes " it ought to be easy to in- 
 vent something humorous and also something 
 quite touching to say on the subject Mr. El- 
 dredge had given him. Fellows working hard 
 all the season taking the rough knocks of 
 better players, used as buffers by the first 
 eleven, and then on the day of the game just 
 wearing the first eleven's blankets and tod- 
 dling up and down the side-line. They were 
 comical figures, all bundled and blanketed, 
 but they were pathetic, too, and each one 
 praying that some one on the first eleven 
 would get hurt not seriously hurt, of course, 
 but just enough to have to leave the game. It 
 was inevitable that a substitute should always
 
 146 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 be in that state of mind, and it was an idea 
 out of which something might be made. 
 
 Then, Harry reflected, he could become per- 
 sonal, and take up the cases of various indi- 
 viduals. There was " Fatty " Myers, who wore 
 five sweaters, and whose heroic abstinence all 
 the season from sweetmeats and pastry had 
 delighted the scornful; there was Tad Mel- 
 ville, who, when he was not exercising, was 
 reading books on " How to Get Strong, and 
 How to Stay So" nicknamed "Old Stay- 
 So," in consequence. There were many little 
 incidents that Harry began to see he could 
 utilize in his speech, and he sat up to the 
 desk and began to write. 
 
 He grew more and more wrapped in the 
 work. One thought followed another, his lips 
 curved now and then in appreciation of his 
 own humor ; and finally he became involved 
 in an eloquent climax, full of feeling and sen- 
 timent and pathos. 
 
 He stopped in the midst of it to read back 
 a little way and admire it. " Oh, by George, 
 it 's a good speech ! " he said to himself. He
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 147 
 
 jumped about in his chair excitedly, and then 
 with self-conscious art he finished his affecting 
 peroration. 
 
 He felt in his heart that it would be a great 
 deal better speech than any one else would 
 make that evening, the only really polished 
 and witty speech, the only one that would have 
 any genuine life and originality. All the 
 others would be like Frank Windsor's, entirely 
 impromptu and commonplace. Harry swelled 
 a little with pride in his accomplishment and 
 in anticipation of the applause it would re- 
 ceive. It would be another proof to the fel- 
 lows of his eminence. 
 
 The banquet was held in the choir-room 
 over the library. All the eleven, all the sub- 
 stitutes, and two or three specially invited 
 guests, of whom Philip Ward was one, sat 
 down to it. 
 
 Mr. Eldredge and two other masters and 
 Ward wore evening clothes. The boys had 
 arrayed themselves in their best, and had at 
 the outset an air of festive formality. 
 
 The two tables, of which one was much
 
 148 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 longer than the other, were placed together in 
 the form of a T. At the top of the T sat Mr. 
 Eldredge, with Rupert Ormsby on his right 
 hand and Philip Ward on his left. At the in- 
 tersection of the T, and in the middle and at 
 the foot of the long table, were placed great 
 bowls of red carnations, and beside every boy's 
 plate was a carnation for his buttonhole and 
 a miniature football tied with a bow of red 
 ribbon. The first thing that the boys did 
 upon sitting down was to pin on these decora- 
 tions. They were more restrained in their 
 behavior than they usually were at meal-time. 
 A glow of cheerfulness rather than a demon- 
 strative spirit of triumph seemed to prevail. 
 
 Harry, sitting between Joe Herrick and 
 Fatty Myers, was assailed by nervousness. The 
 audience that he was to address seemed much 
 more imposing than he had expected, and he 
 suddenly became afraid that he would forget 
 his speech. 
 
 So he took out the manuscript and surrep- 
 titiously tried to study it, holding it in the 
 folds of his napkin ; but both Herrick and
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 149 
 
 Myers detected him, and raised such an out- 
 cry that he had to put it back into his pocket. 
 He did not want to have everybody at the 
 table laughing at him. So he sat silent, trying 
 to recite the speech to himself. 
 
 Before long the formality was all dissipated. 
 Mr. Jackson, the choirmaster, raised suddenly, 
 from his seat at the foot of the long table, the 
 St. Timothy's song, which was at once taken 
 up by all the others ; and after that there was 
 no more constraint. At last, when the ice- 
 cream had been brought on, Mr. Eldredge 
 rose and rapped on the table ; and Harry felt 
 a nervous, chilly tremor down his spine. 
 
 " We have now come," said Mr. Eldredge, 
 "to the literary part of our celebration. I 
 regret that we have n't a poet to do justice to 
 our annual victory over St. John's." 
 
 There was loud applause for the phrase 
 " annual victory," and Mr. Eldredge con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " In default of a poet, I am going to call on 
 one who, we can feel sure, will have some- 
 thing ready and appropriate to say to us, even
 
 150 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 in spite of this suddenness. When by an un- 
 fortunate accident our team was deprived of 
 its captain's leadership upon the field, it 
 became necessary for some one to take his 
 place, or at least to transmit his orders. 
 
 Who does i' the wars more than his captain can 
 Becomes his captain's captain, 
 
 and I am going to call on Frank Windsor, 
 who served as his captain's captain, to tell us 
 how the game was won." 
 
 Amidst loud applause Mr. Eldredge sat down, 
 and Frank Windsor rose. In spite of all his 
 previous bravado about this experience, he was 
 blushing most uneasily, and no sooner did he 
 begin to speak than perspiration gathered on 
 his forehead. He looked steadily down at his 
 plate, and talked in a low tone and in very 
 mixed, incoherent sentences. 
 
 Harry could not help feeling a superior 
 satisfaction, as Frank went on stammering out 
 his undigested thoughts. He himself would 
 shine all the more by contrast. 
 
 Frank ended with a lame tribute to Rupert, 
 and after repeating it twice in an attempt to
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 151 
 
 make it a little more graceful, abruptly sat 
 down. The boys clapped him and laughed at 
 him while he swallowed ice-water and then 
 mopped his forehead. 
 
 Mr. Eldredge rose again, and Harry, with 
 premonition gripping his throat, began moist- 
 ening his lips. 
 
 "Mr. Windsor has told us how the game 
 was won," said Mr. Eldredge, "but I don't 
 believe he has told us the whole story. There 's 
 a good deal that goes into the winning which 
 never appears on the surface. It's true in 
 football as in most other things that ' they also 
 serve who only stand and wait,' and I will ask 
 Mr. Harry Harding who did not wait in 
 vain to speak on behalf of the substitutes." 
 
 Harry rose, beaming happily. Mr. Eldredge 
 had given him just the opening for his speech. 
 
 " Mr. Toastmaster," he said, " I have a quo- 
 tation, too, for my subject : 
 
 Wait, wait, wait, 
 
 On the cold, gray side line we ! 
 And each tender sub asks his anxious heart, 
 < Will they never call for me ? '"
 
 152 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 He spoke the lines so pathetically that they 
 appealed to all the other substitutes, who 
 began to applaud and laugh with great appre- 
 ciation. That gave him confidence, and he 
 went through his speech with a genial humor 
 and enthusiasm which reached his audience. 
 They laughed at his jokes, and were delighted 
 by his sallies at the expense of Fatty Myers 
 and "Old Stay-So;" and when he finished, 
 it was with the comfortable sense that he had 
 improved his reputation for cleverness. 
 
 The fellows near by congratulated him, 
 and the applause lasted much longer than that 
 which had consigned Frank Windsor's speech 
 to friendly oblivion. 
 
 When it was over, Mr. Eldredge stood up 
 again. 
 
 " If it is true," he began, " that { calamity 
 is man's true touchstone,' perhaps we ought to 
 congratulate our captain this year on his test 
 instead of condoling with him on his misfor- 
 tune. I will venture to say that if he had been 
 able to lead his team to victory in person, we 
 should still not have learned to respect and
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 153 
 
 admire him so much as we do now ; and I be- 
 lieve that however well he might have played, 
 he could not have done more toward winning 
 the game than, by communicating his spirit 
 and his influence to his team, he has already 
 done." 
 
 Here Mr. Eldredge was interrupted by a 
 burst of applause, louder and longer, Harry 
 could not help noticing with a twinge of 
 jealousy, than that which had just resounded 
 for him. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Mr. Eldredge, "I am 
 going to call on Rupert Ormsby to speak for 
 the team." 
 
 While the clapping rose and continued, Ru- 
 pert picked up the crutches lying beside his 
 chair, and with them and Mr. Eldredge's as- 
 sistance, got to his feet. His face was as red 
 as Frank Windsor's had been, but it was with 
 emotion rather than with confusion. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Eldredge," he said ; and 
 the master sat down. 
 
 Rupert hesitated a moment, and then, as he 
 leaned on his crutches, he smiled. " I guess
 
 154 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 this team does n't need anybody to speak for 
 it. Least of all a fellow that was lolling in a 
 carriage while it was doing the work. Mr. 
 Eldredge has just said some things that are 
 very pleasant, but not very true. But part of 
 what he said was entirely true ; and that is 
 that if I 'd been in the game we would n't have 
 done a bit better." 
 
 " Never said it ! " interjected Mr. Eldredge, 
 and the audience laughed. 
 
 "Well, you implied it, anyway," retorted 
 Rupert humorously. " You were too polite 
 really to say it. Joe Herrick, who played my 
 end, did all that I could ever have thought of 
 doing and I dare say I should n't have been 
 on the spot, as he was, to pick up that ball 
 and put it where it would mean a touchdown. 
 And Holder and Harding, on the other end, 
 played so that nobody would ever have guessed 
 we 'd been afraid of a weak spot. And the 
 others all played as I 'd never, never seen them 
 play. Mr. Eldredge is very generous, attribut- 
 ing so much of the winning spirit to me ; but 
 I want to say that the spirit that won that game
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 155 
 
 did n't belong to me ; it belonged to the fellows 
 themselves. 
 
 "In fact," he hesitated again, and then 
 went on, " in fact, I 've got to make a con- 
 fession. When it was all over, and you fellows 
 had won and the crowd was parading away 
 from the field, I did n't feel happy a bit. I felt 
 sore sore because I was n't in it all, and be- 
 cause I 'd had to see other fellows doing what 
 I 'd wanted to do. I can tell you this now, for 
 I 've got over it, and I do feel very, very happy. 
 And I can honestly say now, as I look back, 
 that I would n't have had things happen any 
 differently. You won't all of you perhaps 
 you won't any of you understand, but this 
 whole thing has made me more aware of what 
 there is in you fellows, and of the way you 're 
 good enough to feel toward me, than I could 
 ever have been if I had n't got hurt and if I 'd 
 played in the game." 
 
 And while, with Mr. Eldredge's assistance, 
 he was laboriously getting back into his seat, 
 and the boys, who had been very much touched 
 by what he had said, were clapping noisily,
 
 156 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Joe Herrick was the only one of them all to 
 appreciate the full significance of Rupert's last 
 words. He found himself winking unaccount- 
 ably to clear up the mist that had gathered in 
 his eyes ; and then on a sudden inspiration he 
 mounted his chair, and shouted : 
 
 " Fellows, all up, and three times three for 
 Ormsby!" 
 
 Harry cheered with the others, but there 
 was a little sting of disappointment in his 
 breast even while he cheered. Somehow he 
 knew that Rupert's speech had eclipsed his 
 own brilliancy. When he sat down, he heard 
 Fatty Myers say to some one across the table : 
 
 "That's about the best speech a fellow 
 could make," and Sam Morse answered, " You 
 bet!" 
 
 Mr. Eldredge was whispering to Ward. 
 Then he rose and rapped on the table. 
 
 " We have with us to-night," he said, " a 
 distinguished son of St. Timothy's distin- 
 guished though still young. Every boy in 
 this room is familiar with the career of Philip 
 Ward, and can tell just how many years he
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 157 
 
 has played on a 'varsity football-team. And 
 every boy in this room who aspires to play on 
 a 'varsity team himself some day wants to hear 
 from Philip Ward." 
 
 The boys showed their satisfaction by loud 
 clapping and an eager pushing about of their 
 chairs ; and Philip Ward rose. Tall and dark, 
 he was very handsome as he stood there in his 
 evening clothes, and the boys all looked up 
 at him with respectful admiration. His face, 
 which was naturally rather severe in its clear, 
 determined lines, lighted up as he smiled and 
 bowed, first to Mr. Eldredge, and then, as the 
 master sat down, to the others. 
 
 " Mr. Toastmaster and members of the St. 
 Timothy's eleven," he began, "for certain 
 reasons I couldn't help comparing to-day's 
 game with the last football game I ever played 
 against St. John's. I roomed that year with 
 Clark Harding, who was captain of the team. 
 
 " He was our best man just as, from all 
 I hear, Rupert Ormsby was your best man. 
 But in the first five minutes of the game with 
 St. John's Clark wrenched his knee, and had
 
 158 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 to be carried from the field. He lay on the 
 side line the rest of the game, looking on. 
 He lay there and saw another fellow do the 
 things he'd hoped to do. He lay there and 
 saw this chap Skilton and a corker he was, 
 too win the game. And yet of all the fel- 
 lows that played that day you'd have said 
 Clark Harding was the happiest and so, I 
 believe, he really was, except perhaps Skilton. 
 But here 's a thing I saw in our room that 
 night a thing I Ve never told till now." 
 
 He paused a moment ; the boys waited in- 
 tently. Harry, of course, was listening with 
 a proud and special interest. Rupert was sit- 
 ting with his eyes lowered, thinking that he 
 did not compare very well with Clark Hard- 
 ing. 
 
 " I was writing a letter home about the 
 game, and turned suddenly to ask him a ques- 
 tion. He was lying on the bed with his face 
 toward me, dabbing the tears away from his 
 eyes with a handkerchief. I knew it wasn't 
 the pain in his knee that made the tears hi his 
 eyes. He asked me why I wanted to turn
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 159 
 
 round just then, and I did n't say a word, and 
 we neither of us ever mentioned it again. I 
 knew that time about Clark, just as all you 
 fellows have known to-night about Rupert 
 Ormsby, that it was n't because he 'd missed 
 the glory of making the touchdown that he 
 felt badly, but because he 'd been shut out 
 from doing the work and being useful. And I 
 consider that an honorable sort of regret, with 
 nothing small or mean or envious in it. And 
 when you hear a fellow like Rupert Ormsby 
 crying himself down for selfishness and pet- 
 tiness, why, clap him the way you 've done to- 
 night and don't believe him." 
 
 They all laughed and clapped at this 
 except Rupert. And he sat blushing and feel- 
 ing a good deal better than a few moments 
 before, when he had foreseen a disastrous com- 
 parison with Clark Harding. Philip Ward 
 continued : - 
 
 " When Mr. Eldredge told me I 'd be ex- 
 pected to make a speech to-night, I thought 
 perhaps the best thing I could do would be to 
 talk on how to act when you go to college
 
 160 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 for I suppose most of you are going a year or 
 two years from now. And it seems to me that 
 the case of Clark Harding which is the same, 
 you see, as the case of Rupert Ormsby gives 
 me a good starting-point. Those two fellows 
 are out to do something not just to be promi- 
 nent. At least, that 's the way it was with 
 Clark, and from having known Rupert since 
 he was a kid, I think I can say the same for 
 him. But we '11 leave him out of it now ; it's 
 not fair to embarrass him any more by sing- 
 ing his praises. I '11 stick simply to Clark. 
 
 "He was a fellow, I can tell you, that never 
 once thought of the importance of being per- 
 sonally prominent. He never did things with 
 that purpose in view. Now in that respect he 
 was different from nearly every other fellow of 
 his age; he was certainly different from me. 
 Here at school I 'd got into the habit of mis- 
 taking prominence for success; nearly every 
 boy makes that mistake. It's only the rare 
 fellows like Clark who don't make it. 
 
 u But the rest of us find out after a while 
 that it is a mistake. We 've gone to college,
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 161 
 
 just as we've gone to school, maybe with 
 just an idea of being socially prominent and 
 popular, getting into clubs and societies, mak- 
 ing athletic teams, holding offices, being 
 talked about and looked up to as if we were 
 somebody. And maybe we succeed in that 
 ambition. And then, when we Ve done it, we 
 find that it 's a pretty empty success, after all. 
 
 " We find that some fellow like Clark Hard- 
 ing, who has n't lifted a hand to gain what 
 we Ve prized, has got that and more, too. And 
 we begin to feel like the pacemaker in a run- 
 ning race, who starts out as if he were going 
 to leave the whole field behind and then, 
 after the first lap, is passed by every one. 
 That's what comes to the boy who, either 
 here or at college, acquires no more solid am- 
 bition than just to shine." 
 
 Ward paused a moment, and in that inter- 
 val, while the other boys were sitting gravely 
 silent, Harry stirred in a discomfort that was 
 almost physical. With a sudden sensitiveness, 
 which had made him wince, he had felt that, 
 unintentionally, this discourse was aimed at
 
 162 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 him. And what made it more painful was that 
 the brother whom he adored was being used 
 to point the moral. How truly he knew that 
 he himself was the boy who liked to shine ! 
 
 " I hope," Ward continued, speaking even 
 more earnestly, " you won't misunderstand me. 
 Most of you fellows who are here to-night 
 are prominent in the life of St. Timothy's 
 School. The fact that you are here is an 
 indication of prominence. And prominence is 
 not a crime; it need not be a misfortune. 
 It means that you are having a larger oppor- 
 tunity to live than other boys a larger 
 opportunity to work and to play, a larger op- 
 portunity to befriend those who are more 
 obscure, more weak, more unsatisfied and 
 unhappy than yourselves. You have the 
 opportunity for leadership; and leadership 
 means a good deal more than walking at the 
 head of the procession. The fellow who is 
 after the ornamental features of leadership 
 will never be a leader. He will only be that 
 by doing the work and letting some one else 
 attend to the advertising.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 163 
 
 All good things await 
 
 Him who cares not to be great 
 
 But as he saves and serves the state. 
 
 " And you are saving and serving the state 
 this little state of St. Timothy's when 
 you are building your own character. For when 
 you are building your own character, you 
 are though you may not know it helping 
 some friend to build his. And character is 
 the only thing that counts. Without charac- 
 ter, muscles are nothing; brains are nothing; 
 and though you had ' the front of Jove him- 
 self, an eye like Mars, to threaten and com-r 
 mand,' and had not character, some homely, 
 puny-looking dwarf, who has what you lack, 
 may arise at any moment and upset you." 
 
 He sat down ; and after a moment of still- 
 ness, which attested the impression that his 
 speech had made, the applause broke out. And 
 Harry, applauding with the others, knew that 
 his own clever little speech, over which he 
 had so hopefully toiled, was already buried 
 and forgotten. 
 
 But it was no longer this knowledge which
 
 164 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 depressed him on this night of triumph and cel- 
 ebration. Philip Ward had, all unconsciously, 
 shown him how unlike Clark he was, and it 
 was this which stung. 
 
 When Harry came into his room that night 
 he found a letter from Clark, postmarked 
 Aden, lying on his desk. 
 
 It was the first unsympathetic letter that 
 he had ever had from his brother. This was 
 the part that hurt : 
 
 " What the dickens is all this about your 
 being elected president of the athletic asso- 
 ciation? It may be all right, but I don't 
 quite see it. I never knew you were especially 
 much of an athlete. It looks to me as if you 
 fellows in the Crown had been playing politics. 
 Have n't you got somebody else's honor away 
 from him ? "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 T TARRY almost wept over this letter. To 
 - - think that Clark, whom he had expected 
 to make proud and happy by the announce- 
 ment, should view his election in such a spirit ! 
 
 Harry's disappointment was not accompa- 
 nied by any bitterness against his brother ; 
 and he could not escape the justice of Clark's 
 criticism. He admitted to himself that the 
 Crown had played politics, but he had not him- 
 self encouraged this or taken part. There had 
 been no real opposition to his candidacy. Ru- 
 pert Ormsby, the only other fellow who was 
 seriously considered, had been indifferent to 
 the office ; and, as it turned out in the voting, 
 the majority of the school wanted Harry to be 
 their president. 
 
 This was the explanation that he made in 
 answering Clark's letter, and he added quite 
 wistfully that he thought he had done some-
 
 166 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 thing to justify such an election. He described 
 the part he had taken in the football game, 
 and recited Philip Ward's tribute to him. 
 
 " And I 'm going to see if I can't make the 
 track team in the spring," he wrote. " I 'm 
 a good deal bigger and stronger than I was 
 when you last saw me, Clark." 
 
 In this way he sought to answer not only 
 Clark's reproaches, but his own. 
 
 Clark had not suggested to him that he 
 should resign the office, but it was a solution 
 which presented itself to Harry's conscience. 
 Yet he could not bring himself to make such 
 renunciation. There was still the thought of 
 that day in June to enchant him, the thought 
 of standing up with the President of the 
 United States, or some one else almost as 
 distinguished, the thought of the pleasure 
 it would give his mother if not Clark ! 
 
 He believed that Clark, when he was on the 
 spot and saw how well his brother could carry 
 off such an occasion, was bound to be pleased. 
 So, although he had taken very much to heart 
 what Philip Ward had said at the banquet, it
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 167 
 
 did not influence him into renouncing honors 
 already won. It was as a suggestion for future 
 conduct rather than as a corrective of the past 
 that it was to have its effect. 
 
 He honestly wished now to evade promi- 
 nence, to avoid being conspicuous; and he 
 decided that the best way was by staying in 
 his room and studying hard, and doing his 
 editorial work for the " Mirror " with more care 
 and with less of the eleventh-hour facility 
 which he had been accustomed to give to it. 
 In short, he was determined to see if he could 
 not work in a quite unworldly way. 
 
 The time did not favor him ; it was between 
 seasons, so to speak, when there was not much 
 to do outdoors. Snow and ice had not yet 
 come, and in the recreation hours the boys 
 roamed restlessly from room to room. 
 
 Harry's quarters had always been a rallying- 
 place, and it was impossible to make the fel- 
 lows understand that they were not so welcome 
 as formerly, even if it had been true. Harry 
 always confessed to a weak sort of gladness 
 when they arrived and compelled him to put
 
 168 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 away his work; and as for Frank Windsor, 
 he could not endure either solitude or scholar- 
 ship. 
 
 Yet Harry was making a struggle, and he 
 acquired the habit of resorting in the after- 
 noon to the library instead of to his room. 
 There he found he could read and write undis- 
 turbed. And there, too, he began to take an 
 interest in those queer, quiet boys who spent 
 so much time at tables and desks that their 
 sleeves were rubbed shiny, and whom Harry 
 had been inclined to regard as the freaks and 
 offscourings of the school. 
 
 They turned out to be more human than 
 he had supposed. And he found that if he did 
 not ridicule them, as many of the fellows did, 
 they were rather pleased than otherwise when 
 he uttered some extravagant sentiment to 
 shock their primness. 
 
 During the rest of that term, which closed 
 a few days before Christmas, Harry helped 
 aspirants to construct stories and essays for 
 the " Mirror," he tried to improve the standard 
 of the paper, he availed himself of his author-
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 169 
 
 ity as president of the Pen and Ink to make 
 out lists of references for reading on the sub- 
 jects of debate. To the pleasant surprise of 
 the rector and the masters, he began to show 
 a faculty for being unobtrusively helpful. 
 
 It was in the Pen and Ink that Harry found 
 the first urgent and difficult demand upon his 
 newly awakened public spirit. There was only 
 one vacancy left, and at the first meeting 
 after Thanksgiving an attempt to fill this was 
 made. Harry, presiding, called for nomina- 
 tions. Immediately Nat Belmont was on his 
 feet, proposing Francis Stoddard. Some one 
 else seconded him. 
 
 " Are there any other nominations ? " asked 
 Harry. 
 
 Frank Windsor rose. " I nominate Mr. Al- 
 bree," he said. 
 
 Harry looked surprised. His roommate had 
 not confided this purpose to him. Bruce 
 Watson seconded Albree's name. 
 
 There were no other nominations. Candi- 
 dates were voted on in alphabetical order; 
 therefore Albree's name was submitted first.
 
 170 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Two blackballs excluded a candidate from 
 membership ; and when the votes were counted 
 it was found that Albree had received seven 
 blackballs. Frank Windsor and Bruce Wat- 
 son, who were sitting together in the back of 
 the room, conferred in whispers after this an- 
 nouncement. Then Frank rose. 
 
 " Mr. President," he said, " I 'd like to say 
 about Mr. Albree that he 's one of the bright- 
 est and most amusing fellows I know, and I 
 don't think the fact that he's never done 
 much in a literary way should count against 
 him. He 'd be mighty good in debates. He 's 
 witty and clever, and I hope the society will 
 feel like reconsidering its vote." 
 
 " Mr. Stoddard has been proposed for mem- 
 bership, and will now be voted on," said Harry, 
 and Windsor sat down. 
 
 A few moments later Harry received from 
 the tellers the memorandum announcing the 
 result of the vote. He announced slowly : 
 
 " Mr. Stoddard has received two blackballs, 
 and is therefore not elected." 
 
 Nat Belmont and three or four other fellows
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 171 
 
 sitting on the front benches twisted round and 
 glared angrily at Watson and Windsor. Bruce 
 Watson accepted the challenge of this glare, 
 and rose. 
 
 " Mr. President," he said, in a pacific voice, 
 " I should like to say that Francis Stoddard 
 is a friend of mine. I 've known him and liked 
 him for a long time, and personally I should 
 be glad to see him in the society. But I can't 
 help thinking that Albree would be the better 
 man of the two, and that his election would be 
 for the better interests of the Pen and Ink. 
 He 'd do more to liven things up than Stoddard 
 would. I hate, for personal reasons, to be op- 
 posing Stoddard, but that 's the way I feel." 
 
 "Mr. President," said Belmont quickly, "I 
 move another ballot be taken on both candi- 
 dates." 
 
 The motion was carried without debate. 
 This time Albree received nine blackballs 
 more than half of the total number of votes 
 cast. Windsor and Watson looked grim. The 
 ballot-box was passed for votes upon Stoddard's 
 name. He received, as before, two blackballs.
 
 172 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 "Mr. President," exclaimed Belmont, "I 
 move another ballot on Mr. Stoddard ! " 
 
 There was no objection raised, but the third 
 ballot showed the same result as the two previ- 
 ous ones. And a fourth ballot was taken, with 
 no change. 
 
 " Is it the pleasure of the meeting that the 
 balloting should go on indefinitely?" asked 
 Harry. 
 
 Belmont rose. " Mr. President, it seems to 
 me that two members are trying to hold up 
 this society. Two members are keeping a 
 fellow out that the society wants, in order to 
 get in a fellow that the society does n't want. 
 I suggest that one more ballot be taken to 
 give these gentlemen a chance to show a better 
 spirit." 
 
 "Mr. President," cried Frank Windsor, 
 starting to his feet, " in reply to the gentle- 
 man 's insinuations about holding up the soci- 
 ety, I 'd like to say I 've as much right to my 
 vote as he has to his ; and if he thinks he can 
 bulldoze me into changing it, he '11 find him- 
 self mistaken ! "
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 173 
 
 Belmont was quick to reply. " Mr. Presi- 
 dent, the only bulldozing that I 've ever known 
 of in this society has come from members of a 
 secret society that meets somewhere off in the 
 woods and tries to run the affairs of another." 
 
 Harry, flushing, rapped on the table and 
 rose. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " I think there 's 
 been enough of this. If we adjourn and talk 
 things over among ourselves, we'll be able to 
 settle them in a better temper. Will some one 
 make a motion to adjourn?" 
 
 The motion was made and carried. Later 
 in the evening Harry talked to Frank Windsor 
 and Bruce Watson in his room. 
 
 "You fellows are in the wrong," he said to 
 them earnestly. " Albree is n't as good a man 
 for the place as Stoddard, and you can't per- 
 suade that crowd that he is. You can keep on 
 blackballing Stoddard, but you'll never get 
 Albree in. Now do you want to keep on, 
 and split the society, and maybe do worse 
 than that?" 
 
 u How worse than that ? " asked Watson.
 
 174 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " There are some pretty plain hints. Some 
 of the fellows think it's time there was a rival 
 society started to operate against the Crown. 
 Once that 's done, it will mean a continuous 
 wrangle in the school." 
 
 " I don't see why Stoddard 's a better man," 
 insisted Watson. 
 
 " He's written some pretty good stuff for 
 the ' Mirror,' and Albree never has, for one 
 thing," Harry explained. 
 
 " But Albree 's more amusing." 
 
 " That 's not really the point, and you know 
 it, Bruce. Now are you fellows going to be 
 pig-headed and make trouble, or are you go- 
 ing to give in when nine tenths of the society 
 show you that you 're in the wrong ? " 
 
 " I told Tom Albree I 'd get him elected ; 
 he wants to join," Frank Windsor muttered 
 stubbornly. 
 
 " Oh, that 's it ! " exclaimed Harry, in a sort 
 of exasperated despair. " And now you don't 
 like to own up to him that you can't do what 
 you promised ! " He thought a moment, and 
 then he said, " I tell you what, Frank. If I
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 175 
 
 go to Tom Albree myself, and explain how it 
 is, and so let you and Bruce out, will you 
 agree not to blackball Stoddard ? " 
 
 They looked at each other and hesitated, 
 and then said, " Yes." 
 
 It was a task repugnant to one who had 
 always tried to bring pleasant messages to 
 people and to evade the unwelcome word. 
 But as president of the Crown, and also of 
 the Pen and Ink, and in the interests of both 
 societies, Harry fulfilled the duty. 
 
 Tom Albree did not take his rejection with 
 good grace, and he believed Harry to have 
 been at the bottom of it ; in fact, Harry forced 
 himself to be brave enough to declare his 
 responsibility. Albree concluded that Harry 
 was becoming officious, and thenceforth he 
 felt less friendly toward him. But the threat- 
 ening split in the Pen and Ink was averted, and 
 there was a lull in the hints about the necessity 
 of a secret society antagonistic to the Crown. 
 
 The Sunday afternoon meetings of the Crown 
 had degenerated into empty, futile affairs. On 
 cold, damp days the sacred rock held out no
 
 176 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 attractions, and the prescribed meeting was a 
 mere formality. 
 
 The society was at this inactive period so 
 purposeless that it had nothing to do but to 
 discuss the merits of the various fifth-form 
 boys who might be called on to continue it. 
 Harry had begun to weary of the impressive 
 secrecy and exclusiveness of its performances. 
 To march away every Sunday afternoon with 
 the school looking on and holding its breath 
 had ceased to give him a pleasurable exhilara- 
 tion. The sham importance of it all made him 
 now a little ashamed. He felt it was one of 
 those vacuous manifestations of prominence 
 against which Philip Ward had uttered his 
 warning. 
 
 One Sunday, as the members of the Crown 
 were proceeding to their rallying-place, they 
 passed Rupert Ormsby, swinging along on his 
 crutches, with Francis Stoddard walking at 
 his side. It galled Harry to have to go by with 
 the others and say nothing more than " Hello ! " 
 It grated on his sensitiveness, as if he were 
 unwillingly a party to an insult, or at least a
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 177 
 
 deliberate slight. It seemed somehow especially 
 ankind to pass a lame fellow who was limping 
 along on crutches, and not linger and talk with 
 him a while. 
 
 Moreover, with Harry's growing admiration 
 for Rupert there had been a growing jealousy 
 of Rupert's intimacy with Stoddard j and there 
 was now perhaps a personal reluctance on 
 Harry's part to pass and leave Stoddard in 
 undivided possession of this intimacy. 
 
 At any rate, the incident prompted Harry 
 to utter his protest as soon as the Crown was 
 assembled at the sacred rock. 
 
 " Fellows," he said, " I 'd like to know if 
 you aren't getting tired of this secret society 
 business? We all know it 's just a fake. Is n't 
 it about time to drop it ? " 
 
 " Oh shucks, no ! " declared Frank Windsor. 
 " It 's amusing, and besides, it keeps the other 
 fellows guessing." 
 
 " This is n't our busy season," put in Bruce 
 Watson. " When it 's necessary to run things 
 we can do a lot of good." 
 
 " It seems to me the Crown has done con-
 
 178 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 siderable for you, Harry," said Tom Albree. 
 "Just because you've got everything you 
 want through it, I don't know that the Crown 
 has outlived its usefulness." 
 
 Harry flushed. " That 's not a very fair re- 
 mark," he said, "even though it sounds telling. 
 I think the Crown has outlived its usefulness, 
 whether it comes with a good grace from me 
 to say so or not." 
 
 " I don't agree with you," said Albree, in 
 a chilly voice. The others remained silent, 
 except for one or two muttered remarks, " I 
 don't, either." 
 
 " Well," said Harry, with dignity, after a 
 moment, " I don't seem in sympathy with the 
 society, and I wish to tender my resignation 
 as president." 
 
 " Oh bosh ! " cried Frank Windsor. " We 
 don't want you to resign ; we won't have it. 
 I move that Mr. Harding's resignation be not 
 accepted." 
 
 The motion was seconded and carried, and 
 then Joe Herrick, who had not spoken except 
 to vote, said :
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 179 
 
 " Just the same, I think there 's something in 
 Harry's suggestion. I believe it 's worth think- 
 ing over." 
 
 This from one who had formerly been the 
 most partisan and narrow-minded upholder of 
 the dignity of the Crown was startling, and the 
 boys looked at Herrick in wonder. 
 
 " I don't see what 's come over you, Joe," 
 remarked Albree discontentedly. 
 
 " It 's just that I believe there 's something 
 in what Harry says," Herrick repeated. 
 
 "Well," Albree answered, "maybe you'll 
 change your mind." 
 
 The matter was for the time being al- 
 lowed to drop. Harry afterward explained his 
 views to Frank Windsor and one or two other 
 members, but he did not convince them, and 
 he did not press the agitation. 
 
 When hockey and snow-shoeing and to- 
 bogganing began, Harry found his diversions 
 mainly indoors. He was a poor skater, he dis- 
 liked snow-shoeing, and he was indifferent to 
 tobogganing. His favorite diversion on winter 
 afternoons in previous years had been to as-
 
 180 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 semble a crowd of indolent companions in his 
 room, brew chocolate for them, and devise with 
 them disorderly plots and practical jokes, for 
 which he had a conspicuous fertility of mind. 
 
 But now he resorted to the gymnasium, and 
 trained with the first squad of candidates for 
 the crews ; and he abandoned his mischievously 
 disposed friends to visit or walk with Ru- 
 pert. 
 
 He found Francis Stoddard nearly always 
 with Rupert, and that irritated him at first ; 
 but after a while he did not mind. As he 
 phrased it to himself, Rupert's friendship was 
 " good for two." 
 
 Stoddard played on the banjo, and taught 
 Harry and Rupert to pick out several tunes. 
 Both boys took a great delight in mastering 
 this elementary accomplishment. Rupert's leg 
 was getting stronger, too, and although he was 
 not able to discard his crutches, he could 
 swing along on them as rapidly now as any 
 one would want to walk. 
 
 When there was no hockey, Joe Herrick 
 sometimes dropped into Rupert's room, or
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 181 
 
 joined him and the others in their walks. At 
 first Herrick's appearance made Stoddard 
 shrink into his shell, but by degrees they be- 
 came tolerant of each other, and at last even 
 friends. So, uneventfully enough, the last days 
 of the term slipped past. 
 
 The Christmas vacation was a long one. 
 Rupert Ormsby went away from the school 
 on crutches ; he came back without them, de- 
 claring joyfully that his leg was as strong as 
 it had ever been. 
 
 To demonstrate this, he joined at once in 
 the hockey practice, and five days later played 
 for the Pythians in the second of the interclub 
 games, and helped them to win it by shooting 
 a brilliant goal. The Corinthians had won the 
 first game, but now, with Rupert showing all 
 his old-time speed and skill, their prospect of 
 securing the championship was dimmed. 
 
 The day after this game it rained, and then 
 followed a week of thaw and slush, during 
 which the boys who demanded exercise betook 
 themselves to the gymnasium. Rupert joined 
 temporarily the squad of crew candidates,
 
 182 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 among whom Harry, with no chance in the 
 world, was already enrolled. They were train- 
 ing under the leadership of Sam Morse of the 
 fifth form, who had been the strongest oar in 
 the boat the year before, and would undoubt- 
 edly be chosen captain. 
 
 The crew candidates pulled chest-weights a 
 tedious number of times, and those who were 
 regarded as most promising rowed on the row- 
 ing-machines, and then they all ended the day's 
 exercise with a mile run outdoors when this 
 was practicable, but on rainy days on the short 
 padded track of the gymnasium. 
 
 On the fourth afternoon of his crew prac- 
 tice Rupert Ormsby came down into the dress- 
 sing-room after the mile run, and stretched 
 himself, panting, on the bench, with his hands 
 clasped over his eyes. 
 
 Harry, whose locker was near by, looked at 
 him, and said : 
 
 " What 's the matter, Rupe? " 
 
 "Nothing just a headache," Rupert an- 
 swered. 
 
 He sat up after a while and began taking
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 183 
 
 off his clothes. His face seemed to Harry 
 unnaturally white. 
 
 "I've had a headache all day," Rupert said, 
 "and running jolted it up a good deal. I 
 guess a shower-bath may wash it out." 
 
 But he did not feel or look any better after 
 he was dressed. 
 
 "I've had headaches before," he said to 
 Harry, as they left the gymnasium together. 
 " But this one 's a corker." 
 
 He went to his room and tried to study his 
 Greek lesson, but the harsh letters of the Iliad 
 grew blurred and blinding before his aching 
 eyes. Soon he put the book down, and lay 
 with his eyes closed. 
 
 The school-bell rang, announcing the last 
 recitation hour of the day ; and Rupert rose, 
 took his book, and went to the study building. 
 He was called on almost at the beginning of 
 the hour to translate. He tried to stumble 
 through the lines, but after a moment he looked 
 up at the master and said, " I 'm not prepared, 
 sir." 
 
 Mr. Allen glanced at him in surprise, and
 
 184 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 then for the first time noticed the grayish pallor 
 of his face. 
 
 "I'm afraid you're not well, Ormsby," he 
 observed. "I'd suggest that you go over to 
 the infirmary." 
 
 "No, sir, it's nothing," Rupert answered. 
 He had a horror of the infirmary, where he 
 had already spent so many weeks. " It 's just 
 a headache." 
 
 He sat down, and Mr. Allen marked him 
 leniently for the failure. 
 
 For Rupert the hour of recitation dragged 
 on with intolerable slowness. He could not 
 look at his book. If he moved his head sud- 
 denly, pain darted through his eyeballs, and 
 darkness shut down over them for a moment. 
 The hot, throbbing ache seemed to vary its 
 energy, now allowing intervals of relief be- 
 tween the pulses, now speeding up the battery 
 and sending the shocks quivering in swift 
 succession. 
 
 When the hour ended, Rupert got to his feet 
 and stood a moment, swaying in giddiness. 
 Then, with a fresh burst of pain, his eyesight
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 185 
 
 cleared, and he made his way out of the 
 door. 
 
 He could eat nothing at supper ; and after- 
 ward, as he was going up to his room, Mr. El- 
 dredge, who was his dormitory master, stopped 
 him. 
 
 " Rupert," said the master, " I want you to 
 go down to the infirmary." 
 
 "All right, sir." Rupert turned wearily, 
 put on his hat and overcoat, and went out of 
 the door. 
 
 Later that evening, when the half-hour al- 
 lowed for " visiting " arrived, Harry knocked 
 on Rupert's door. There was no response. Mr. 
 Eldredge, who happened to be standing at the 
 head of the corridor, came down. 
 
 " Rupert won't be in to-night," he said. 
 " He looked so sick, I had him go over to the 
 infirmary. And since then they've sent over 
 for his things so I 'm afraid he 's to stay 
 there for a while." 
 
 "What's the matter with him, sir?" Harry 
 asked. 
 
 " I don't know. Nothing serious, I hope."
 
 186 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast, when 
 they were on their way to chapel, Harry and 
 Joe Herrick stopped at the infirmary to find 
 out how Rupert was. 
 
 "He had a rather bad night," the matron 
 said to them. " He has a high temperature and 
 he 's very feverish. In fact, though it 's too 
 early to be sure, we're afraid it's typhoid 
 fever."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ~TN silent fear Harry Harding and Joe Her- 
 -- rick looked at each other ; then they turned 
 and went silently down the infirmary steps. 
 Typhoid fever ! That would mean that Rupert 
 would be out of everything for the rest of 
 the year out of athletics, out of the school 
 life! 
 
 That it might perhaps mean even worse than 
 this was a possibility which neither of the boys 
 entertained. Rupert was so strong, so healthy, 
 that indeed the most morbid imagination could 
 hardly contemplate a fatal termination to his 
 illness. But that he should be ill and with 
 such a tedious disease was bad enough. 
 
 " Perhaps it 's not typhoid fever," Harry 
 said hopefully, as they walked away. 
 
 Herrick shook his head. "She wouldn't 
 have suggested it might be unless she 'd been 
 pretty sure."
 
 188 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Harry acknowledged to himself that this 
 was reasonable, and they walked on for a time 
 in gloomy silence. Then Herrick suddenly 
 broke out : 
 
 " Oh, I feel as if it was all my fault ! If 
 I only had n't tripped him up that day, this 
 might never have happened ! " 
 
 " What nonsense ! " Harry exclaimed. 
 " What had that to do with his getting sick 
 now?" 
 
 " You can't tell ; it might have everything 
 to do with it. I suppose maybe he got all run 
 down being laid up so long without exercise. 
 Oh, honestly, Harry, if I could, I 'd take his 
 place now ! " 
 
 "It will do him almost as much good to 
 hear that you felt that way," said Harry. 
 
 In the afternoon Harry went again to the 
 infirmary, told the matron what Joe Herrick 
 had wished, and asked her to repeat it to 
 Rupert. 
 
 She promised to do this, but perhaps the 
 message was never quite clearly understood in 
 the boy's fever-burning brain. For typhoid
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 189 
 
 fever it was indeed, and of a malignant vio- 
 lence. 
 
 " He must have been walking round with it 
 for several days," Doctor Vincent said. And 
 when the doctor was eagerly asked to ex- 
 press an opinion as to the probable duration of 
 the illness, he shrugged his shoulders and 
 answered, "That's something I can't pre- 
 dict." 
 
 No one besides the doctor and the nurses 
 was admitted to see Rupert, and the reports 
 from the sick-room did not, for a couple of 
 weeks, vary much from day to day. During 
 all this time his temperature remained high ; 
 he was generally in a comatose, or, at least, a 
 torpid, state ; he had periods of delirium. 
 
 When, day after day, the boys stopped at 
 the infirmary and received only the report, 
 " He 's just about the same," never the en- 
 couraging word, "He's better this morning," 
 they began to grow more grave and appre- 
 hensive. Just when or how the undercurrent 
 of dread began, no one knew; but it was 
 whispered about that Rupert was not improv
 
 190 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 ing, and that his mother was coming on from 
 Chicago, and that a specialist from Boston 
 had been sent for. 
 
 Harry went each morning into chapel with 
 the fear that this day the rector would read 
 the ominous prayer for the desperately sick. 
 So long as that was omitted, he felt that 
 Rupert's illness was not critical. Yet Doctor 
 Vincent never spoke with any confidence about 
 his patient ; all he would say was that the dis- 
 ease had not yet reached its climax. 
 
 Francis Stoddard went about like one bereft ; 
 he seemed really to take no interest in his 
 school life any more. He was listless in the 
 class which he had once led ; he went off in 
 the afternoons alone on snow-shoes through 
 the woods, repelling offers of companionship ; 
 he took part with only a perfunctory spirit in 
 the exercises of the Pen and Ink, which had 
 at first awakened his enthusiasm. 
 
 Harry noticed his apathy, and in unobtru- 
 sive ways tried to rouse him from it. He 
 appealed to Francis for help in a dearth of 
 manuscripts for the " Mirror ; " he had Fran-
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 191 
 
 cis chosen as one of the debaters for the St. 
 Timothy's medal in the great Pen and Ink 
 debate of the year ; and when there seemed 
 danger of the boy's ignoring both these 
 opportunities, Harry got him into a corner one 
 day and talked to him. 
 
 "See here," he said, " do you think Rupert 
 would stand for the way you 're acting? Don't 
 you realize that the one thing he 'd want 
 would be to have everything and everybody 
 going on just the same as ever? Buck up now, 
 and don't be any different from what you 'd 
 like to have him think you. And say, Francis, 
 can't you really let me have a story for next 
 month's < Mirror'?" 
 
 Francis could not help smiling a little at 
 this appeal. "I '11 see what I can do," he 
 promised, and then he added, " Thank you, 
 Harry ; I know you 're right. But I 've felt 
 too blue to be of any use, that 's all." 
 
 " Well, have n't I been feeling blue, too ? 
 Not that I 'm of any particular use, either ; 
 but I guess I can be as blue as you are." He 
 patted Francis on the shoulder ; and three
 
 192 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 days later Francis brought him the manuscript, 
 and told him that he had begun to work on 
 the debate. 
 
 The days went by, and the question in the 
 minds of the boys had ceased to be, Would 
 Rupert be well enough to row or do anything 
 in athletics toward the end of the year? 
 Doctor Vincent had made it clear to them 
 that of this there was no possibility. Even 
 with the most rapid convalescence, it would 
 be unsafe for Rupert to attempt any hard 
 exercise for a long time to come. 
 
 When this was definitely settled, most of 
 the boys in the school lost interest in his case. 
 It was not because they were heartless, but it 
 was as an athlete that Rupert was mainly 
 known to them, and that they valued him. 
 The dread which Harry and which Rupert's 
 other close friends were beginning to feel and 
 to try to put away from them had not yet oc- 
 curred to most of the fellows, and they merely 
 thought of Rupert as having a slow, stupid 
 time, and hoped he would soon be sitting up, 
 at least.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 193 
 
 One morning after prayers, as the boys were 
 passing out of the chapel, Harry saw a woman 
 in black sitting beside the rector's wife. A 
 certain familiar expression in her quite unfa- 
 miliar face caused him to glance at her a second 
 time, and when he came down the chapel steps 
 he said to Joe Herrick, who happened to be at 
 his side : 
 
 " Rupert's mother has come." 
 
 " How do you know ? " asked Herrick. 
 
 " I saw her just now in the chapel. It must 
 be his mother. She has the same way of look- 
 ing at you from her eyes." 
 
 He told three or four other fellows in the 
 sixth form ; and before going to their rooms 
 for the first hour of study, they loitered by 
 the gate to see Mrs. Ormsby come out and 
 make up their minds if it were really she. 
 They had no doubt when she passed them, 
 accompanied by Doctor Vincent, and turned 
 with him toward the infirmary. 
 
 The boys had raised their caps as she went 
 by, and she had swept them with a friendly, 
 inquiring, almost wistful glance, as if she were
 
 194 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 wondering who among them were closest to 
 her boy. 
 
 " She does n't look so awfully sad," said 
 Harry. 
 
 " She looks pretty sad/' declared Frank 
 Windsor. 
 
 Three days later, when Harry and Frank 
 Windsor were invited to tea at the rectory, 
 to meet Mrs. Ormsby, they found her quite 
 cheerful. 
 
 " The turning-point ought to come within 
 a week, Doctor Vincent tells me," she said to 
 them, when they asked her about Rupert. 
 " And the doctor says Rupert is in as good 
 condition to meet it as can be expected in so 
 severe a case. If it comes to making a fight, I 
 trust him." 
 
 " Yes," said Harry. " We can all do 
 that." 
 
 At that moment he felt that Rupert could 
 have no better ally to aid him in such a fight 
 than his mother. She had the same brave heart 
 as Rupert, she looked at one in the same brave, 
 trusting way. With the sympathy that came
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 195 
 
 from appreciation of his own mother, Harry 
 felt that Mrs. Ormsby, by sitting at Rupert's 
 bedside and holding his hand, could unite her 
 spirit with his and bring him through trium- 
 phantly. 
 
 " He sleeps a great deal, and when he is n't 
 asleep he 's drowsy, and his mind seems never 
 very clear," Mrs. Ormsby continued. " Some* 
 times he rambles on in talk about his friends 
 and things he 's been doing in the school. It 's 
 all disjointed, and I can't follow it. 
 
 " He 's mentioned your names a good many 
 times ; and then there 's a boy named Herrick 
 and another named Stoddard that he talks 
 about a good deal. This morning he was tre- 
 mendously excited, addressing Herrick. It 
 worried me, he was so excited. 'Herrick! 
 Herrick ! ' he kept exclaiming, and then he 
 quieted down, and said over and over again, 
 in a consoling sort of way, * It 's all right, Her- 
 rick. Never mind what the school thinks; 
 it's all right, Herrick.' And when he'd said 
 that three or four times, he began to say, 
 ' Thank you, Herrick, for wanting to take my
 
 196 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 place, but I 've got to play this half through 
 myself, I've got to play this half through 
 myself.' He dropped off to sleep still mur- 
 muring it." 
 
 Harry winked sudden tears from his eyes ; 
 Rupert had received his message. 
 
 " That will please Herrick," he said. " I '11 
 tell him." 
 
 " I wish I could remember all he 's said about 
 you, Harry. They were very nice things." 
 Mrs. Onnsby smiled. "He seemed so afraid 
 you would n't understand why he was refusing 
 to do something to join some society, I think. 
 He was afraid he 'd hurt your feelings." 
 
 "He never did that. I I guess I know 
 what he meant." 
 
 Afterward, when they went away, Harry 
 said to Frank Windsor, " That was the Crown 
 Rupert was talking about." Frank nodded and 
 made no answer. 
 
 It was three mornings after this, on Satur- 
 day, that Harry, trying to solve a neglected 
 geometry problem in the few minutes between 
 breakfast and chapel, found himself with too
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 197 
 
 little time to stop at the infirmary for news of 
 the patient. Indeed, he had to go by the build- 
 ing at a run. He entered the chapel just as 
 the doors were closing, and settled into his 
 seat, breathless. 
 
 He was dreaming through the usual prayers 
 when suddenly his senses started awake with 
 a throb. The rector, in his deep voice and with 
 an even deeper solemnity than that which had 
 accompanied the preceding words, had begun 
 the prayer "0 Lord, look down from heaven, 
 behold, visit and relieve thy sick servant." 
 
 Harry, with his heart beating fast in sudden 
 fright, raised his eyes, and from where he knelt 
 looked out into the antechapel. The rector's 
 wife was there, with her head bowed ; but the 
 chair beside her, in which Mrs. Ormsby had 
 been accustomed to sit, was vacant. 
 
 From the chancel the rector's voice, more 
 solemn, more impressive, was proceeding ; and 
 Harry, conscious now of the meaning, closed 
 his eyes again and echoed, with a fervent and 
 imploring soul, that prayer echoed it up to 
 its submissive alternative " or else, give him
 
 198 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 grace so to take thy visitation, that, after this 
 painful life ended, he may dwell with thee in 
 life everlasting." Against those words Harry 
 closed his lips. 
 
 On their way from chapel to the classroom 
 the boys of the sixth form commented in sub- 
 dued tones upon the rector's prayer. Harry 
 demanded anxiously of one and then of another 
 if there was any news. At last Joe Herrick 
 edged through the crowd toward him. 
 
 " I stopped," Herrick said. " It 's the crisis. 
 Of course they've been expecting it. They 
 can't tell how soon the turn may come, one 
 way or the other. He may be like this for 
 forty-eight hours." 
 
 "Like what?" Harry demanded. 
 
 Fighting for life." 
 
 Harry put his hand out upon the banister 
 rail and gripped it while he toiled up the 
 stairs. The strength seemed to have gone 
 from his knees; he had no heart for lessons 
 or for play. Then he recalled the brave faith 
 of Rupert's mother, "If it should come 
 to a fight," and he kept saying to himself
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 199 
 
 as he continued on up the stairs, " Oh, he 
 must get well, he must get well ! " 
 
 Mr. Eldredge, usually so even-tempered, had 
 a harassed look in the class that morning, and 
 was severe with the boys who were slow or 
 unprepared. 
 
 He sent Harry to the blackboard to demon- 
 strate a theorem. Harry made his drawings 
 languidly, and Mr. Eldredge looked on at him 
 with an exasperation which the rest of the class 
 noted. The work was done correctly enough, 
 however ; and when he had finished drawing 
 the figure, Harry reached for a pointer with 
 which to make his demonstration. In doing 
 this he knocked down an eraser from its 
 shelf. It fell clattering to the floor, and Mr. 
 Eldredge, who had for a moment looked away, 
 jumped. 
 
 " That will do for you, Harding ! " he said. 
 " Take your seat." 
 
 Harry turned submissively. The master saw 
 there were tears in his eyes. He called on 
 Francis Stoddard to finish the demonstration. 
 At the end of the hour he asked Harry to stay
 
 200 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 behind, and when the boy came up to his desk, 
 he said : 
 
 " Harry, I 'm afraid my nerves are not very 
 good this morning; you can guess why. I 
 needn't have sent you to your seat." 
 
 " It 's all right, sir," Harry answered. " Mr. 
 Eldredge," he looked up at him appealingly, 
 "have you heard anything, sir? Do you 
 think he'll pull through?" 
 
 " I 've only heard that it 's very critical." 
 The master gathered up his papers and books 
 and walked away with Harry, talking to him 
 about Rupert and recalling little acts of the 
 boy which Harry had never known. " He 's 
 made the school better for being in it," said 
 the master, as they parted. 
 
 Harry sat during the next study hour on the 
 window-seat of his room, with a Greek book 
 open before him, but he looked out of the 
 window more than at the text. He looked 
 across at the gabled end of the infirmary, where 
 he knew that Rupert lay. The things that 
 Rupert had done, and those which Rupert 
 had tried and had failed to do he measured
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 201 
 
 beside them his own efforts and achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 What was most worthy in these had received 
 impetus and help from Rupert; all that was 
 mistaken had met Rupert's opposition. And 
 now, as Harry's thoughts swept back over the 
 year, he felt humbly how small and young a 
 figure he had presented, how kind and gener- 
 ous to him Rupert had always been. At the 
 thought of Rupert wasted away to a shadow, 
 delirious in a darkened room, gasping for 
 breath Harry threw his Iliad on the table 
 and buried his face in his arms. 
 
 That afternoon the Pythiansand Corinthians 
 played the deciding game for the hockey 
 championship ; and in the heat of contest no 
 doubt the sick boy was forgotten. Pythian 
 and Corinthian clashed sticks and sped after 
 the puck with the ardent zeal to win ; but 
 when the game was finished, and the champion- 
 ship rested with the Corinthians, they made 
 little parade of their triumph. 
 
 Instead, Tilden, their captain, skated up to 
 Bruce Watson, who was leading the Pythians,
 
 202 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 and after shaking his hand, said, " If you 'd 
 had Rupert, it would have been different;" 
 and then together they skated to the bank and 
 asked one of the bystanders if there was any 
 news. 
 
 Harry saw only part of the game. He left 
 it twice to walk up to the infirmary, in hope 
 of being the first to receive an encouraging 
 bulletin. 
 
 But it was always the same " Condition 
 unchanged." It was the last word that he 
 heard from Mr. Eldredge when he went to 
 bed that night ; it was the response to his 
 inquiry the next morning. 
 
 That afternoon, at the regular meeting of 
 the Crown, which was held in Herrick's room 
 instead of at the sacred rock, owing to a heavy 
 fall of snow, Harry put forth his ultimatum. 
 It was not conceived on the spur of the mo- 
 ment. It was the outgrowth of his reflections 
 of the past few days. 
 
 "Fellows," he said, "some of you won't 
 agree with me, but I hope, anyway, you '11 
 listen. You all remember how Rupert Ormsby
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 203 
 
 once refused to join our society and how 
 some of us accused him of all sorts of motives. 
 I happened to hear the other day from his 
 mother that in his delirium he 'd been try- 
 ing to explain why he felt obliged to refuse 
 trying to put it so it would n't hurt my 
 feelings. We all know now there was just 
 one reason why he refused and that was 
 because he thought a secret society like the 
 Crown was a poor thing in such a school as 
 this. 
 
 "Now I want to say to you fellows that 
 in my heart I believe Rupert was right! I 
 could n't help believing it at the time, but I 
 would n't own up to it. A secret society like 
 this is apt to give its members a false idea of 
 their importance, and make them jealous of 
 the success of anybody outside. And it is a 
 cliquey, undemocratic kind of thing, no mat- 
 ter how well it 's run. Some day, if it 's kept 
 alive, a discontented crowd will organize an 
 opposition society, and that will mean a con- 
 tinuous split in the school. 
 
 " Now I propose that we disband and not
 
 204 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 only that, but that we go to the fifth-formers 
 that are expecting to be elected into the Crown 
 and tell them why we 've discontinued it, and 
 ask them for the good of the school not to reor- 
 ganize it. 
 
 " I wish you 'd all talk it over now ; and I 
 hope you '11 come to my opinion. I 'd like to 
 say one more thing, not as a threat, or any- 
 thing of that sort, you understand, but just 
 because I have come to feel so out of sympa- 
 thy, and that is, that if you decide to con- 
 tinue the Crown, I want to resign, not only as 
 president, but as a member." 
 
 Herrick spoke up immediately in support of 
 Harry's suggestion. Albree opposed it, and 
 Bruce Watson deprecated it. 
 
 The others seemed disturbed in mind and 
 unwilling to express an opinion. But at last 
 Frank Windsor came out openly in favor of 
 disbanding. He acknowledged he had been 
 reluctant to take that view, but he believed 
 there was truth in what his roommate said, and 
 he had decided to back him up. 
 
 And that was the beginning of the end.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 205 
 
 Gradually the others were brought round, and 
 at last the Crown adjourned forever. 
 
 " It will please Rupert when he 's well 
 enough to hear it," Frank Windsor said to 
 Harry afterward. 
 
 " If only he will some time be well enough ! " 
 Harry answered. 
 
 The next morning it seemed that Harry's 
 wish might soon be granted. The welcome 
 news ran through the school at breakfast that 
 Rupert had passed the crisis, that the upward 
 turn had begun. The prayer for the desper- 
 ately sick was not said that morning in chapel. 
 A new spirit of happiness seemed to have 
 awakened and to pervade all the school exer- 
 cises. It shone in the faces of masters and of 
 boys. 
 
 Harry and Francis Stoddard went snow- 
 shoeing together in the afternoon, and found 
 no words to confide to each other their joy. 
 Frank Windsor and Joe Herrick, among the 
 candidates for the crew exercising in the gym- 
 nasium, forgot in their pleasant thoughts the 
 strain that was being put upon their muscles.
 
 206 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 But after a couple of days the report from 
 the infirmary was less favorable. Rupert did 
 not improve as had been expected. There was 
 still cause for alarm. 
 
 Within two weeks the relapse came sud- 
 denly. The school heard of it at noon. That 
 evening, after supper, the rector entered the 
 great schoolroom, where all the boys except 
 the privileged sixth-formers sat studying. 
 
 They looked up with surprise and appre- 
 hension as the rector slowly paced up the aisle 
 to the platform, looking neither to the right 
 nor to the left. The master in charge of the 
 schoolroom rose from his chair. The rector 
 mounted the steps to the platform and stood 
 beside him. And all the boys looked up in a 
 breathless hush. 
 
 " Boys," said the rector, in a quivering 
 voice, unlike that which they were accustomed 
 to hear, " one of your best-beloved comrades 
 is lying to-night at the point of death. I need 
 not ask you when you leave this room to go to 
 your dormitories as quietly, as noiselessly, as 
 you can."
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 207 
 
 That evening Harry Harding, as he sat in 
 his room, heard the bell from the chapel tower 
 proclaim the end of study. He put aside his 
 books, and waited to hear the familiar sound 
 of voices and laughter, and of feet tramping 
 up from the study building along the board 
 walk. He waited, but he heard nothing. 
 
 At last, in wonder, he went to the window. 
 It was a moonlight night. The board walk 
 that led past the infirmary down to the study 
 stretched shining and empty; but on each 
 side of it were boys, singly and in groups, 
 but all silent, trudging ankle-deep through the 
 snow.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 "T TARRY and Frank were asleep in the 
 -**- morning when the harsh clangor of the 
 rising-bell resounded through the dormitory. 
 It approached down the corridor, rang for a 
 moment before their door, and then receded, 
 leaving them roused to the sorrow of the 
 day. 
 
 Harry was the first to leave his bed. When 
 he had closed the window, he stood looking 
 out a moment, although the room was so cold 
 that he shivered. 
 
 The sun was brilliant on the snow, the ici- 
 cles hanging from the eaves were twinkling 
 crystals, the smoke from the chimneys of the 
 buildings curled up toward a serene sky ; but 
 to Harry all this blithesome aspect had the 
 indifference of utter cruelty. It would have 
 been more befitting if the day had come in 
 tempest and in gloom.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 209 
 
 Then, as he turned to dress, there was a 
 knock on the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " cried Harry. The door opened, 
 and Mr. Eldredge stood before him with a face 
 so radiant that the boy's heart leaped up. 
 
 " I thought you 'd like to know," said the 
 master. " Rupert rallied splendidly early this 
 morning. He 's grown stronger, and it looks 
 now as if the danger-point was past." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Harry. He turned. "Did 
 you hear, Frank ? Did you hear ? Wake up ! 
 Get up! Frank, isn't it great! Did you 
 hear?" 
 
 He dragged his roommate out of bed ; and 
 Mr. Eldredge left them to their own rejoic- 
 ing. 
 
 When they had finished their mad, hilarious 
 dressing, Harry stood again for a moment look- 
 ing out of the window, down toward the in- 
 firmary. And now there seemed no cruelty in 
 the gay sunlight, the flashing splendor of ice 
 and snow, the tranquil stillness. All this was 
 revealed to Harry now as part of the happiness 
 of this day. And it was a gentle, friendly earth
 
 210 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 and air and sky that showed and shared such 
 happiness. No gayest holiday in all the year 
 had filled the school with so much joy as this 
 bright day in March. 
 
 After breakfast, as Harry and half a dozen 
 others were on their way to the infirmary to 
 get an official report, they met Doctor Vincent 
 leaving the building. The doctor's face was 
 pale and haggard, for he had not slept at all 
 during two nights and a day, and he walked 
 unsteadily ; his tired eyes could not bear the 
 light reflected from the snow. But when the 
 boys came near and he recognized them, he 
 laughed and flung up one hand and cried, 
 " It 's all right now, fellows ; he 's pulled 
 through. But I tell you, it was the closest 
 caU ! " 
 
 He passed on up the road. 
 
 " He 's feeling about as good as any one, for 
 all he looks so done up," said Joe Herrick. 
 
 " It must be fine," sighed Harry, " to be 
 a doctor and know you 've pulled a fellow 
 through." 
 
 " Finest thing in the world," declared Frank
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 211 
 
 Windsor, who looked forward to doing just 
 that some day. 
 
 In chapel that morning the rector read the 
 one hundred and third Psalm, the psalm in 
 which are verses that are spoken above the 
 dead, the psalm in which are other verses of 
 rejoicing for the living. The boys who had 
 heard his quivering voice when he made the 
 announcement in the schoolroom the night 
 before caught now the exultation and the 
 fervor with which he read the words, and in 
 the same spirit made the responses. 
 
 After that they all knelt ; and in place of 
 the gloomy prayer for the desperately sick, 
 with its clause of resignation to a grievous 
 outcome, the rector read the thanksgiving on 
 behalf of those who have been brought back 
 from the valley of death. And the murmur- 
 ing, slumberous " Amen ! " of the boys rose 
 to the Gothic arches and died whispering 
 away. 
 
 Rupert's return to health was slow. It was 
 not until a few days before the beginning of 
 the Easter vacation that his friends were ad-
 
 212 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 mitted to see him, and then it was for only a 
 few brief moments. 
 
 Harry had hardly more than a glimpse of a 
 frail and emaciated face with big, listless eyes 
 and a smile so wan that it was almost sadder 
 than tears. He left the room feeling oppressed 
 with a sense that there could never be the 
 old, strong Rupert again. 
 
 He saw him but twice before going away 
 for the Easter holidays. When he returned 
 after the two weeks' absence, he learned to his 
 sorrow that Rupert had gone. Rupert had 
 improved so much that it had been thought 
 safe to move him ; and his mother had taken 
 him South in the hope that there he might 
 regain his health more rapidly. 
 
 " And won't he come back to the school at 
 all, sir?" Harry asked the rector, who had 
 given him this information. 
 
 " I 'm afraid he won't," the rector replied. 
 " You see, he 's missed nearly a whole term 
 now, and he will find it impossible to regain 
 his standing with the form. He won't be well 
 and strong for a good while yet."
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 213 
 
 To Harry the news was a sad disappoint- 
 ment. The intimacy which had grown so dear 
 to him seemed now forever brought to an end. 
 He and Kupert were going to different col- 
 leges, their homes were in cities far apart ; it 
 was unlikely that their paths would ever cross 
 in after life. The parting from friends was the 
 inevitable sorrow which the close of school life 
 would bring; but this premature separation 
 from the best beloved of all, this sudden break- 
 ing off of an intimacy that had already been 
 cruelly interrupted, seemed to Harry very hard 
 to bear. 
 
 Francis Stoddard was equally depressed, but 
 he surprised Harry after the first day or two of 
 gloom by urging the duty of cheerfulness. 
 
 "I tell you," he declared to Harry and Her- 
 rick, on a stormy afternoon, when they sat to- 
 gether over a "brew" of chocolate, "we ought 
 to be so thankful his life was spared that we 
 should never be sad again. That 's enough in 
 itself to make us happy, and I 'm going to be 
 as happy as I can." 
 
 " That 's the way to talk," said Herrick.
 
 214 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " Besides, he won't be having a bad time taking 
 it easy down South, and missing all this beastly 
 weather. Francis, let me see if I can still pick 
 out ' The Blue Danube.'" 
 
 He reached for Stoddard's banjo and began 
 thumbing the strings. 
 
 " great Scott ! " said Harry. " Just when 
 we were trying to be as happy as we can ! Take 
 it from him, Francis, for goodness' sake ! " 
 
 Perhaps even if they had not determined to 
 show such a brave spirit, they could not long 
 have remained melancholy. For this was the 
 happy term, the one most crowded with activity, 
 the one in which the sentiment of those who 
 were so soon to leave ripened to its sweetest, 
 and made them more than ever before respon- 
 sive to all that was kind and gentle in the life, 
 all that was beautiful in the place. 
 
 Spring was the time, too, of the flowering 
 forth of sports as well as of woods and fields. 
 Canoes were launched in the ponds, " scrub" 
 baseball games were played on the rough 
 meadow behind the upper school long before 
 the playground was in condition, the crews had
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 215 
 
 their first practice in their shells the whole 
 school seemed more than ever active and alive. 
 
 Herrick was rowing on one of the crews, but 
 Harry had been dropped from the squad en- 
 tirely. He turned at first to scrub baseball, 
 hoping to develop in that enough skill to win 
 a place later on the Corinthian team. But he 
 nearly always struck out when he tried to bat, 
 and he soon realized that the ball-field was not 
 one that he could adorn. 
 
 Then he began training for the half-mile 
 run. He had pretty good " wind," and he was 
 confident that if he worked hard he would be 
 chosen to compete in the June sports. 
 
 Indeed, a sort of fear was urging him on 
 now in these efforts, a feeling that he must 
 succeed in order not to be ridiculous. At this 
 season of the year, when other boys were per- 
 forming exploits on pond or field, his own ath- 
 letic prowess at football seemed very small and 
 remote ; and if he was to stand up as president 
 of the athletic association and feel really com- 
 fortable, he must take some part in the athletics 
 of this term.
 
 216 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Two weeks before the annual field-day he 
 was awarded his place on the Corinthian track 
 team. His uneasiness was set at rest. Even 
 though he knew that in the half-mile event 
 Sam Morse would surely beat him, he was 
 content. 
 
 He had had several letters in the weeks since 
 Easter from Rupert letters in which even 
 the handwriting seemed to indicate the pro- 
 gress back toward health. 
 
 " I 'm coming North pretty soon now," Ru- 
 pert had written in the last of these. " Maybe 
 I '11 be allowed to make you a visit some time 
 before the end of the term. It would be fine 
 to see all you fellows again." 
 
 Harry had shown the letter to every one 
 in the sixth form, and had got up a " round 
 robin" reply to it, urging Rupert to come. 
 
 It was not difficult to secure the signatures ; 
 and indeed there was in all matters a more 
 harmonious spirit in the school this term than 
 there had been before. In the dissolution of 
 the Crown the barriers that had separated fac- 
 tions were swept away. There had grown up a
 
 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 217 
 
 freer and more genial intercourse when the 
 assumption by a few of a secret and important 
 interest was discontinued. And Harry's lead- 
 ership in school affairs was not more disputed 
 and was far less resented than when he had 
 relied for it upon the support of his " ma- 
 chine." It had never been more enthusiasti- 
 cally followed than in the framing of this letter 
 to Rupert. 
 
 The day when Harry learned that his position 
 on the Corinthian track team was secure was 
 crowded for him with pleasurable excitement. 
 He received that afternoon a telegram from 
 his brother Clark, announcing his arrival at 
 San Francisco. Clark and Archer Sands were 
 entering upon the last stage of their journey 
 round the world. They would both be present 
 on the field-day. 
 
 Only a few hours after Harry had received 
 the telegram, he met the rector walking down 
 to the athletic field. He touched his cap and 
 was passing, but the rector stopped. 
 
 " Harry," he said, " I understand you 're 
 to have charge of the exercises on field-day.
 
 218 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Do you think " his eyes twinkled " you 're 
 up to introducing the President of the United 
 States to an audience ? " 
 
 " He 's coming? " Harry cried. 
 
 " Yes, he 's coming," answered the rector. 
 " We shall expect you to put him at his ease 
 before the audience." 
 
 He laughed in his merry, noiseless way at 
 his little joke, laid a gentle hand on Harry's 
 shoulder for a moment, and then walked on. 
 
 Harry hastened exultantly to his room and 
 wrote a letter to his mother, in which he gave 
 her the accumulation of good news. "And 
 now you must be sure to come up to the school 
 for that day," he wrote. " It would spoil it all 
 for me if you did n't come. Besides, just think, 
 it may be your only chance to see one of your 
 sons standing up with the President of the 
 United States." 
 
 He did not communicate the news to his 
 mother alone. When he had anything inter- 
 esting in his mind, he was lavish in sharing it ; 
 and before nightfall every boy in the school 
 knew that the President was really coming to
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 219 
 
 be the rector's guest, and make a speech on 
 field-day. 
 
 All the fellows who had gone in for track 
 athletics were tremendously elated. If they 
 could only win a prize, how near they would 
 be to the President when they came up to re- 
 ceive it within three or four feet of him, 
 maybe ! And all the fellows who had gone in 
 for baseball and rowing felt correspondingly 
 chagrined. There would be no chance for 
 them. 
 
 But it was Harry whose position seemed to 
 them all most enviable. 
 
 " You '11 meet him stand right up and 
 talk to him ! " Bruce Watson made the dis- 
 covery at supper that night. " Oh, what a 
 cinch ! " 
 
 Harry was so frankly joyous over his oppor- 
 tunity that no one could feel very resentful 
 about it, and the teasing he received concern- 
 ing his chances for a diplomatic appointment 
 or a place in the Cabinet was all good-na- 
 tured. 
 
 He lost no time in setting about the prepara-
 
 220 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 tion of his speech. It must necessarily be short, 
 but he wished the phrasing of it to be exactly 
 right. He came down to dinner one day satis- 
 fied in mind. He felt that he had hit upon 
 the best possible introduction. 
 
 Tom Eastman, who sat next to him and who 
 was captain of the Pythian track team, was 
 tearing open a letter. After a moment he 
 looked up. 
 
 " The President 'a not the only fellow who 's 
 coming on for field-day," he said, with exul- 
 tation. 
 
 "Who else?" Harry asked. 
 
 " Rupert Ormsby." All the boys at the table 
 broke out in eager exclamation and inquiry. 
 " Yes, I '11 read you what he says if you '11 
 only keep still. 'I hope the Pythians are 
 showing their speed on the track this year. 
 The doctor has said I may come on for field- 
 day, and I want to see the Pythians win the 
 way they used to. Love to Harry Harding and 
 Stoddard and Herrick, and all the rest.' Just 
 a scrap of a note but is n't it great ! " 
 
 There was enthusiastic agreement upon this,
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 221 
 
 and the news that Rupert was Doming circu- 
 lated through the school as rapidly as that 
 about the President had done, and caused al- 
 most as much excitement. 
 
 " I wish we could give him a a demonstra- 
 tion of some kind," said Frank Windsor, after 
 he had crawled into bed that night. 
 
 The remark started Harry to thinking ; and 
 while he lay in the darkness, and after Frank's 
 regular breathing had proclaimed he was 
 asleep, a big and generous idea came into 
 Harry's mind. He lay pondering it rather 
 sadly, and at last dropped off to sleep, won- 
 dering if he would have courage for it the 
 next morning. 
 
 When he awoke he faced it cheerfully, 
 without shrinking. He took Joe Herrick 
 aside after breakfast and whispered with him. 
 
 At noon a notice on the bulletin-board at- 
 tracted a curious throng : 
 
 There will be an important meeting of the athletic 
 association in the auditorium to-morrow at 12.30. 
 Important. All attend. 
 
 H. HAEDING, President
 
 222 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Boys came up to Harry at intervals through 
 the day, asking him why the meeting was 
 called, but he gave them all the same mystify- 
 ing answer " Wait and see." 
 
 Even Frank Windsor had not been taken 
 into his confidence, and was quite indignant 
 that Harry should make such a secret of what 
 was probably a trivial matter. The mysteri- 
 ous secrecy achieved, however, its purpose in 
 bringing out the next day a full attendance 
 at the meeting. Harry mounted the platform 
 and stood, and when the boys were silent he 
 said: 
 
 " The meeting will please come to order. I 
 will ask Mr. Eldredge to take the chair." 
 
 Thereupon Mr. Eldredge mounted the plat- 
 form, and Harry descended from it, and stand- 
 ing on the floor said : 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, I called this meeting be- 
 cause I wish to tender my resignation as presi- 
 dent. I should like to say a few words in 
 explanation. Rupert Ormsby is coming back 
 here for field-day. Everybody knows Ormsby 
 was the best athlete in the school. He ought
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 223 
 
 by rights to have been elected president in 
 the first place. And it seems to me maybe we 
 could make up a little of his hard luck to him 
 by electing him now, and having him stand 
 up on field-day as our president. I 'm sure it 
 would please him, and I believe all the fellows 
 in the school would like to have him in that 
 position. Mr. Chairman, here 's my resigna- 
 tion," Harry handed a folded paper up to 
 Mr. Eldredge, "and I hope very much it 
 will be accepted, and my other suggestion 
 adopted." 
 
 He sat down, red with the excitement of hist 
 speech, and amid a great outburst of applause 
 applause which was as much perhaps for 
 his generosity as for his idea. When it had 
 subsided, Mr. Eldredge said, with a smile : 
 
 " I take it for granted that you are willing 
 to accept Mr. Harding's resignation. Is there 
 any objection?" 
 
 He waited a moment. There was no answer. 
 Then Harry nudged Joe Herrick, who was sit- 
 ting next to him, and Herrick rose. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," he said, " I move that
 
 224 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 Mr. Ormsby be elected president by acclama- 
 tion." 
 
 " Second the motion ! " cried a dozen voices 
 from all parts of the hall. 
 
 " Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. 
 All those in favor say aye ! " 
 
 There rolled back an overwhelming re- 
 sponse. 
 
 " Mr. Ormsby is elected. Is there any further 
 business ? " 
 
 " Mr. Chairman ! " Harry was again on his 
 feet and again excited. " I think it would be 
 a good thing if we could make this a surprise 
 to Mr. Ormsby not notify him beforehand. 
 Let it come to him all unexpected." 
 
 " Does the suggestion strike the meeting as 
 a good one ? " Mr. Eldredge asked. 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! " came the answering cries. 
 
 " Then the chair earnestly requests that no 
 one transmit to Mr. Ormsby, either by writing 
 or by any other means whatsoever, the news 
 of his election; and the chair appoints Mr. 
 Harding, Mr. Herrick, and Mr. Stoddard a 
 committee of three to wait upon Mr. Ormsby
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 225 
 
 and inform him of his election at their dis- 
 cretion. If there is no further business, the 
 meeting is adjourned." 
 
 The boys slowly dispersed, but a good many 
 of those who knew Harry waited. They had 
 some idea what it had cost him to make this 
 sacrifice, and they wished to say a word which 
 might show their sympathy. But he turned it 
 aside with a laugh. 
 
 There had never before been a field-day 
 when so little attention had been given by the 
 spectators to the athletic sports ; but that fact 
 in no wise discouraged the contestants. Indeed, 
 they exhibited more than ordinary zeal. This 
 was explained by the two messages which the 
 captains had given their teams at the begin- 
 ning of the afternoon inside the athletic 
 house. 
 
 " Now, fellows, just one thing," said Jim 
 Tilden, captain of the Corinthians. " Remem- 
 ber the President of the United States is 
 out there to look at you." 
 
 Tom Eastman, the captain of the Pythians,
 
 226 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 heard the speech. " Now, fellows, just one 
 thing," he said, with quick defiance in his 
 voice, and Corinthians as well as Pythians 
 paused to listen. " Remember Rupert 
 Ormsby is out there to look at you." 
 
 And because of these two facts the eyes 
 of the school and of the visitors were turned 
 away much of the time from the young ath- 
 letes, who were running and jumping and 
 putting the shot. 
 
 Most of them gazed at the gentleman in the 
 silk hat who sat next to the rector in the mid- 
 dle of the stand. But although he held the 
 attention of so many, there was always a little 
 gathering about an open carriage which was 
 drawn up close to the track, and in which sat a 
 boy, pale and thin, yet with a happy eagerness 
 shining in his blue eyes. 
 
 Harry finished fourth in the half-mile run. 
 He had hoped to do better than that, but when 
 it was all over he did not feel very much dis- 
 appointed. He dressed as quickly as he could, 
 and hurried out to join his mother and Clark. 
 They were sitting not very far from the Presi-
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 227 
 
 dent. And Philip Ward, who also had come 
 on for the field-day, was sitting there too, next 
 to his old roommate. 
 
 " It 's much worse than a three-ring circus," 
 Harry said to his mother. " I want to look at 
 you and Clark, and I want to look at the Pre- 
 sident, and I want to be with Rupert Ormsby 
 up there in the carriage, and I want to see the 
 sports. They 're mighty close, but the Pythians 
 are sure to win now. They 're better in these 
 last two events than we are. I shan't mind so 
 much, because it will please Rupert. Clark," 
 he nudged his brother, "I want you 
 to come with me and meet Rupert Ormsby. 
 We '11 be back in a little while, mother." 
 
 As they walked up in front of the stand, it 
 made Harry proud to be aware that in spite of 
 the other attractions some of the boys were 
 noticing his big, handsome brother, and say- 
 ing, " See that fellow with Harry? That must 
 be Clark Harding." Indeed, he was as proud 
 of Clark as if he himself had been the older 
 brother, and had brought him up. 
 
 " Pretty near time for you to do your presi-
 
 228 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 dential act, Harry," Clark said, as they walked 
 along. 
 
 " No, not to-day," Harry answered. 
 
 Clark glanced at him with a puzzled inquiry 
 in his eyes, but Harry did not explain. And 
 the next moment they were at the carriage, 
 and Rupert Ormsby and Clark Harding were 
 shaking hands. Joe Herrick and Francis Stod- 
 dard and the other boys who had been hanging 
 round the carriage modestly withdrew. Harry 
 took Herrick and Stoddard to one side, and 
 whispered with them while his brother and 
 Rupert talked. 
 
 A pistol-shot sounded across the field, and 
 five white-clad figures leaped forward in the 
 start of the mile run, the last race on the pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 " I think we 'd better tell him now," said 
 Harry. 
 
 With grave faces the committee of three re- 
 turned to the carriage. They stood by, waiting 
 until the runners had passed on the first lap. 
 Then Harry spoke. 
 
 " Rupert," he said, " we three have been
 
 HAEDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 229 
 
 appointed a committee to tell you that you are 
 expected, as president of the athletic associa- 
 tion, to stand up in a few minutes and do your 
 duty." 
 
 Rupert and Clark both looked at him in 
 astonishment. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Rupert. 
 
 " That 's right, Rupe ! " Stoddard broke in 
 excitedly. " Harry resigned the presidency a 
 little while ago, and you were unanimously 
 elected." 
 
 " We knew you were the only real athlete 
 in the school, even if you were sick," Herrick 
 added. 
 
 Rupert looked from one to another. A faint 
 flush of color had come into his pale cheeks. 
 
 " This is your doing, Harry," he said at 
 last, with a tremor of reproach and gratitude 
 in his voice. " You ought not to have done it, 
 old man. You ought not to have done it." 
 
 " He ought," said Clark Harding abruptly. 
 His voice was gruff, and the grip that he 
 fastened on his brother's arm was hard, yet 
 Harry knew there was tenderness in both.
 
 230 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 " You 'd better be thinking up what to say, 
 Rupe," Harry warned him. " They '11 be want- 
 ing you after this race." 
 
 The Pythians had already won the champion- 
 ship, no matter what might be the result of 
 the mile run. Yet when the five came down 
 the home-stretch with only a few yards sepa- 
 rating them, there seemed as much excitement 
 among the spectators as if the event were to 
 be decisive. The boys were crowded about the 
 finish line and along up the track, shouting 
 the names of their favorites " Eastman ! 
 Eastman!" "Hall! Hall!" And in the stand 
 the spectators were on their feet, waving flags 
 and hats the President among them. 
 
 " Eastman got it ! " Harry announced from 
 the step of the carriage to which he had 
 climbed. "One more score for you fellows, 
 Rupert. Now you'd better let me help you 
 down. The rector will be looking for you." 
 
 " Oh, I 'm not so feeble as all that," said 
 Rupert, and he scorned the proffered hands 
 that were outstretched to aid him. He clam- 
 bered down to the ground alone.
 
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 231 
 
 Yet he was rather rickety and walked slowly, 
 and submitted after a moment to having Harry 
 take his arm and steer him through the crowd. 
 At the foot of the grand stand was the rector, 
 awaiting them. He took Rupert from Harry's 
 charge and led him up the steps. And Harry, 
 returning to where his mother sat with Philip 
 Ward, saw Rupert with his hat off, shaking 
 hands with the President. At that sight a 
 lump of disappointment rose in Harry's throat. 
 Perhaps his mother knew how he felt, for she 
 pressed his hand without looking at him, and 
 he swallowed the lump. 
 
 Rupert and the President and the rector's 
 little daughter, who was to hand out the prizes, 
 walked together across the track to the table, 
 on which were the shining mugs and medals. 
 The President walked in the middle, arm in 
 arm with each of the others. 
 
 "That's to steady Rupert," Harry mur- 
 mured to his mother. " Is n't it nice of 
 him?" 
 
 The crowd became very still and expectant. 
 Standing by the table, with her hands folded
 
 232 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 in front of her, the little girl looked wonder- 
 ingly up at the President, who gazed straight 
 ahead with a faint smile. 
 
 Rupert took a step forward. He did not 
 look like a great athlete. His clothes hung 
 loose upon his shrunken figure, his face was 
 pale, and as he spoke his voice was thin and 
 rather tremulous. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, and boys of St. 
 Timothy's School," he said, " I have the great 
 honor of presenting to you the President of 
 the United States." 
 
 The applause lasted only a moment. Every 
 one was too eager to hear the President speak. 
 He turned first to Rupert. 
 
 " Mr. President," he said, and bowed, " ladies 
 and gentlemen, and boys. I was very much im- 
 pressed this afternoon with a little story that 
 your rector told me while I was looking on at 
 your sports. It was the story of a boy who 
 might, if all had gone well, have been a leader 
 in these sports,. a boy who was perhaps the 
 best athlete in this school, which has, as I have 
 seen to-day, so many athletes, but a boy who
 
 By permission of The Youth's Companion 
 
 THE RECTOR AWAITED THEM
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 283 
 
 by a series of misfortunes had been obliged to 
 leave in the middle of the year with all his 
 school ambitions unattained, all his promised 
 achievements unfulfilled. Yet he had left be- 
 hind so dear a name that when, still an invalid, 
 he was able to revisit the school, he found 
 bestowed upon him the highest honor for that 
 brief period that the school could give. I am 
 glad to be among boys who do not forget true 
 worth ; and I am glad to stand beside the boy 
 whose worth they have not forgotten." 
 
 Then from the stand, from up and down 
 the track, upon which people had crowded in 
 their eagerness to hear and see, came a great 
 outburst of applause, during which Rupert 
 stood looking at the ground, while the Presi- 
 dent's hand rested lightly on his shoulder. 
 When at last the cheering ceased, the Presi- 
 dent continued : 
 
 " But this is not ah 1 of the story that the 
 rector told me. There was another boy who 
 had been elected to this honorable office. And 
 it was his unselfish thought, a thought none 
 the less unselfish because it was prompted by
 
 234 HAKDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 
 
 a sense of justice, it was his renunciation 
 and sacrifice, that gave the school its oppor- 
 tunity to show the returning comrade how well 
 he was remembered. And I think it is only 
 fair that I should have the chance of standing 
 beside that boy, too, of standing between 
 the two presidents of your athletic association. 
 If that boy is anywhere round, will he please 
 step out and show himself ? " 
 
 There was laughter and applause and turn- 
 ing of heads. Even Rupert dared now to 
 look up at the stand with a shy, expectant 
 smile. 
 
 Harry Harding was being hustled down the 
 aisle. 
 
 " Get out there ! Get out there ! " his bro- 
 ther had cried to him, thrusting him forward, 
 jamming him through the throng. And as 
 he came, every one along the way gave a hand 
 in helping him forward. In a moment, hatless, 
 red, disheveled, he bounded out on the track 
 and stepped up beside the President. 
 
 "Are you Harry Harding?" asked the 
 President, in a stern and forbidding voice.
 
 HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S 235 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Harry. 
 
 Then the President placed his left hand on 
 Harry's shoulder, his right on Rupert's, and 
 looked again up at the stand, with laughter 
 twitching at his lips. 
 
 " With these two fellows holding up my 
 hands," he said, " I could feel perfectly safe."
 
 Electrotype* and printed by H . O. HougUo* & C0. 
 Cambridge, Mass., U.S. A,
 
 ~0
 
 3 115801175 6870 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Ange 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 
 A 000 128 947 9