Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/77

 and his letters to his father were increasingly cheerful. For days at a time he never went off the school property, but that was principally because football practice occupied his afternoons. The mornings were pretty well taken up with recitations, and with preparing for them. In the afternoon the last recitation for Clif was sometimes at half-past two, sometimes at three. In the latter case he showed up for practice about ten minutes late. Practice generally ran until half-past five nowadays, and there was only enough time for a shower, and a few minutes of rest before supper time. Between supper and study hour there was an interim of perhaps an hour and a half, and after study hour came "prowl." "Prowl" was the hour between nine and ten when visiting between halls was permitted. At ten, unless you were a First Class fellow, you were required to be back in your own room; except you were the fortunate possessor of a permit from a "fac." At ten-thirty you put your light out.

Life was busy and interesting. Clif soon discovered that he was going to have to study rather harder than last year, but he encountered no real difficulty in any course. The same was true of Tom save that the latter was already bogged down, as he phrased it, in English. That was one study which Tom dreaded and disliked—and at which he toiled hardest. "That 'Alick' guy thinks I can't do the fool stuff," he declared once to Clif, "but he's got another think. I'll do it if it kills me!" "Alick" was, of course, Mr. Alexander Wyatt.