Lessons that morning were a gloom and dinner in the huge, half empty dining-room offered an opportunity to satisfy the boy's hunger and--that was all. As a social function it was a flat failure. Everybody talked of the game, as wrecked sailors drifting in an open boat talked of shore. Life was unreal somehow, everything so empty, so quiet. If, as some one had once remarked, The Towers was a very furnace of flaming life and energy--some one had certainly dumped the grate.
The game was to be called at Chancellor's Hill at one-thirty; and at one-thirty the first stragglers appeared in the chilly Archway to take their position at the bulletin board, where the score was to be posted as it came along the wire.
Dick Harrington, in sweater and cap, arrived at one-forty-five. The first score had just been posted:
The Headmaster's secretary, a studious but otherwise attractive young man, who posted the notice, volunteered the information that the Chancellor's Hill left end had turned the trick with a fifty-five yard run when The Towers eleven had tied itself into a knot through a jumbled signal.
"That's an awful beginning!" said Runt Woods, who was standing next to Dick Harrington. He was a little, flat-faced, brownie sort of boy, whom everybody loved. "Must have been in the first five minutes of play."
"They won't get any more," Dick answered confidently. "It's too bad they scored, but they won't get any more."
His optimism was unwarranted. There was a long wait without news. Then Mr. Tuttle, the secretary, reappeared from the Main Building, wearing a rueful smile. He picked up the eraser under the bulletin board, but he did not disturb the zero which stood to the credit (or debit) of The Towers. He rubbed out the 5 that followed Chancellor's Hill and set down 11.
"Two touchdowns and a goal have happened," said Runt Woods gloomily.
"I don't mean that. I mean that something's happened to the team! Lost their heads, or something."
He wondered whether "The Colonel" had been taken ill. "The Colonel" was so completely the heart and soul of the team. If for some reason he were out of it----
They must be playing the second period by now. There was another long wait. Then at last Mr. Tuttle, looking grave, reappeared.