"Glad you dropped in," Mr. Padden assured them. "Anything you boys
want and can't get, let me know."

When he had gone Higgins averred: "There's a fine man--peaceful,
refined--got a lovely character, too. Let's be gentlemen while
we're in his place."

Ringold rose. "I'm going to dance, fellows," he announced, and his
companions followed him, with the exception of the cadaverous
Higgins, who maintained that dancing was a pastime for the
frivolous and weak.

When they returned to their table they found a stranger was seated
with him, who rose as Higgins made him known.

"Boys, meet my old friend, Mr. Jefferson Locke, of St. Louis. He's
all right."

The college men treated this new recruit with a hilarious
cordiality, to which he responded with the air of one quite
accustomed to such reunions.

"I was at the game this afternoon," he explained, when the
greetings were over, "and recognized you chaps when you came in.
I'm a football fan myself."

"You look as if you might have played," said Anthony, sizing up
the broad frame of the Missourian with the critical eye of a
coach.