"I s'pose that means sticking a lot of girls' photos on the wall, some of those crazy banners they embroidered for you, a lot of ribbons, and such truck," commented Sid disgustedly. "I tell you fellows one thing, though, and that is if you go to cluttering up this room too much, I'll have something to say. I'm not going to live in a cozy corner, nor yet a den. I want a decent room."
"Oh, you can have one wall space to decorate in any style you like," said Tom.
"Yes; he'll probably adopt the early English or the late French style," declared Phil, "and have nothing but a calendar on it. Well, every one to his notion. Hello, the alarm clock has stopped," and he began to shake it vigorously.
"Easy with it!" cried Tom. "Do you want to jar the insides loose?"
"You can't hurt this clock," declared Phil, and, as if to prove his words, the fussy little timepiece began ticking away again, as loudly and insistingly as ever. "Well, let's get the room into some decent kind of shape, and then I'm going out and see what the prospects are for football," he went on. "I want to make that quarter-back position if I have to train nights and early mornings."
"Oh, you'll get it, all right," declared Tom. "I wish I was as sure of a place as you are. I believe----"
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Sid opened it. In the hall stood one of the college messengers.
"Hello, Wallops; what have you there?" asked Tom.
"Hand it over," spoke Sid, taking the envelope from the youth. "Probably it's a proposition for him to manage one of the big college football teams."
As Wallops, who, like nearly everything and every one else about the college had a nickname, departed down the corridor, Phil opened the missive. It was brief, but his face paled as he read it.
"My mother is quite ill, and they will have to operate on her to save her life," said Phil slowly.
There was a moment of silence in the room. No one cared to speak, for, though Tom and Sid felt their hearts filled with sympathy for Phil, they did not know what to say. It was curiously quiet--oppressively so. The fussy little alarm clock, on the table piled high with books, was ticking away, as if eager to call attention to itself. Indeed, it did succeed in a measure, for Tom remarked gently.