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 the ocean, in a very few minutes. The Common, a square of turf bisected by paths and set with benches and a band-stand, occupying a block in the older part of town, is the center of the business section. Facing the Common are Clearfield's best and newest business blocks and the Town Hall and the post office, and it was toward the Common that Dick Lovering conducted Eli and Gordon Merrick at the conclusion of football practice.

Gordon was fifteen years old, a very live-looking boy with clean-cut features, dark hair and eyes and a well-built, athletic figure. He and Dick were very good friends, and on the way in from the field they had found so much of strictly personal interest to discuss that after Dick had drawn up before the post office he remembered, while Gordon had gone inside for some stamps, that the latter had quite neglected to mention the important matter he had alluded to at the field. Tom Haley, a big, powerful-looking boy of sixteen who played center on the school team, stopped to talk a moment. Tom was pessimistic to-day.

"Lanny had us doing signal work most of the afternoon," he said. "He's putting the cart before the horse, Dick, for half of us can't handle the ball