object of pity. If he hasn't any legs worth mentioning, the Almighty
made it up to him by giving him a whole lot of brains. If he can't get
about like the rest of us he's a great deal more contented, I believe,
and if he can't play football he can show others how to. And," he added,
as he returned to his desk, "unless I'm mistaken, he's done it to-day.
Now to mail this list and then for the 'antidote'!"

That night in Mills's room the assembled coaches and captain talked over
Sydney's play, discussed it from start to finish, objected, explained,
argued, tore it to pieces and put it together again, and in the end
indorsed it. And Sydney, silent save when called on for an explanation
of some feature of his discovery, sat with his crutches beside his chair
and listened to many complimentary remarks; and at ten o'clock went back
to Walton and bed, only to lie awake until long after the town-clock
had struck midnight, excited and happy.

Had you been at Erskine at any time during the following two weeks and
had managed to get behind the fence, you would have witnessed a very
busy scene. Day after day the varsity and the second fought like the
bitterest enemies; day after day the little army of coaches shouted and
fumed, pleaded and scolded; and day after day a youth on crutches
followed the struggling, panting lines, instructing and criticizing, and
happier than he had been at any time in his memory.

For the "antidote," as they had come to call it, had been tried and had
vindicated its inventor's faith in it. Every afternoon the second team
hammered the varsity line with the tackle-tandem, and almost every time
the varsity stopped it and piled it up in confusion. The call for
volunteers for the thankless position at the front of the little tandem
of two had resulted just as Sydney had predicted. Every candidate for