"Maybe you're right. Well, the fellows back home used to call me 'Spike'."

"What for?" demanded Joe.

"Because my father was in the hardware business."

"I see!" laughed Ricky. "Good enough. Spike suits me. I say, you've got a pretty fair joint here," he went on admiringly. "And some stuff, believe me!" There was envy in his tones as he looked around the room, and noted the various articles Joe was digging out of his trunk--some fencing foils, boxing gloves, a baseball bat and mask, and a number of foreign weapons which Joe had begun to collect in one of his periodical fits and then had given up. "They'll look swell stuck around the walls,"

went on Ricky.

"Yes, it sort of tones up the place, I guess," admitted Joe.

"I've got a lot of flags," spoke Spike. "My trunk didn't come, though.

Hope it'll be here to-morrow."

"Then you will have a den!" declared Ricky. "Got any photos?"

"Photos?" queried Joe wonderingly.

"Yes--girls? You ought to see my collection! Some cla.s.s, believe me; and more than half were free-will offerings," and Ricky drew himself up proudly in his role of a lady-killer.

"Where'd you get the others?" asked Spike.

"Swiped 'em--some I took from my sister. They'll look swell when I get 'em up. Well, I'm getting chilly!" he added, and it was no wonder, for his legs were partly bare. "See you later!" and he slid out of the door.

"Nice chap," commented Joe.

"Rather original," agreed Spike Poole. "I guess he's in the habit of doing things. But say, I'm keeping you up with my talk, I'm afraid."

"I guess it's the other way around," remarked Joe, with a smile.

"No, go ahead, and stick up all the trophies you like. I'll help out to-morrow."

"Oh, well, I guess this'll do for a while," said Joe a little later, when he had partly emptied his trunk. "I think I'll turn in. I don't know how I'll sleep--that Welsh rabbit was a bit more than I'm used to.

So if I see my grandmother in the night----"

"I'll wake you up before the dear old lady gets a chance to box your ears," promised his room-mate with a laugh. And then our hero crawled into bed to spend his first night as a real Yale student.

Joe thought he had never seen so perfect a day as the one to which the alarm clock awakened him some hours later. It was clear and crisp, and on the way to chapel with the others of the Red Shack, he breathed deep of the invigorating air. The exercises were no novelty to him, but it was very different from those at Excelsior Hall, and later the campus seemed to be fairly alive with the students. But Joe no longer felt alone. He had a chum--several of them, in fact, for the acquaintances of the night before seemed even closer in the morning.

The duties of the day were soon over, lectures not yet being under way.

Joe got his name down, learned when he was expected to report, the hours of recitation, and other details. His new chums did the same.

"And now let's see about that eating club," proposed Ricky Hanover, when they were free for the rest of the day. "It's all right to go to Glory's once in a while--especially at night when the jolly crowd is there, and a restaurant isn't bad for a change--but we're not here for a week or a month, and we want some place that's a bit like home."

The others agreed with him, and a little investigation disclosed an eating resort run by a Junior who was working his way through Yale. It was a quiet sort of a place, on a quiet street, not so far away from the Red Shack as to make it inconvenient to go around for breakfast. The patrons of it, besides Joe and his new friends, were mostly Freshmen, though a few Juniors, acquaintances of Roslyn Joyce, who was trying to pay his way to an education by means of it, ate there, as did a couple of very studious Seniors, who did not go in for the society or sporting life.

"This'll be just the thing for us," declared Joe; and the others agreed with him.

There was some talk of football in the air. All about them students were discussing the chances of the eleven, especially in the big games with Harvard and Princeton, and all agreed that, with the new material available, Yale was a sure winner.

"What are you going in for?" asked Joe of Ricky, as the five of them--Joe, Ricky, Spike, Slim Jones and Hank h.e.l.ler strolled across the campus.

"The eleven for mine--if I can make it!" declared Ricky. "What's yours, Joe?"

"Baseball. But it's a long while off."

"That's right--the gridiron has the call just now. Jove, how I want to play!" and Ricky danced about in the excess of his good spirits.

"What are you going in for?" asked Joe of Hank h.e.l.ler.

"I'd like to make the crew, but I don't suppose I have much chance. I'll have to wait, as you will."

"If I can get on the glee club, I'm satisfied," remarked Slim Jones.

"That's about all I'm fit for," he added, with a whimsical smile. "How about you, Spike? Can you play anything?"

"The Jewsharp and mouthorgan. Have they any such clubs here?"

"No!" exclaimed Ricky. "But what's the matter with you trying for the eleven? You've got the build."

"It isn't in my line. I'm like Joe here. I like the diamond best."

"Do you?" cried our hero, delighted to find that his room-mate had the same ambition as himself. "Where do you play?"

"Well, I have been catching for some time."

"Then you and Joe ought to hit it off!" exclaimed Ricky. "Joe's crazy to pitch, and you two can make up a private battery, and use the room for a cage."

CHAPTER IX

THE SHAMPOO

Football was in the air. On every side was the talk of it, and around the college, on the streets leading to the gridiron, and in the cars that took the students out there to watch the practice, could be heard little else but s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation about "punts" and "forward pa.s.ses," the chances for this end or that fullback--how the Bulldog sized up against Princeton and Harvard.

Of course Joe was interested in this, and he was among the most loyal supporters of the team, going out to the practice, and cheering when the 'varsity made a touchdown against the luckless scrub.

"We're going to have a great team!" declared Ricky, as he walked back from practice with Joe one day.

"I'm sure I hope so," spoke our hero. "Have you had a chance?"

"Well, I'm one of the subs, and I've reported every day. They kept us tackling the dummy for quite a while, and I think I got the eye of one of the coaches. But there are so many fellows trying, and such compet.i.tion, that I don't know--it's a fierce fight," and Ricky sighed.

"Never mind," consoled Joe. "You'll make good, I'm sure. I'll have my troubles when the baseball season opens. I guess it won't be easy to get on the nine."

"Well, maybe not, if you insist on being pitcher," said Ricky. "I hear that Weston, who twirled last season, is in line for it again."

"Weston--does he pitch?" gasped Joe. It was the first time he had heard--or thought to ask--what position the lad held who had sneered at him.