course you can't expect to slip through with no punishment at all." "No, indeed!" Still Van spoke with jaunty hopefulness. "The Doctor thinks it is only fair that you should be pretty severely reminded of what you've done." "That's all right. I'm not afraid. Fire ahead! What's he going to do with me?" "He thinks--he says--he feels it is best--" "Oh, come on, come on--out with it!" "He has forbidden you to take any part in the school athletics this spring," was the reluctant whisper. Van did not speak. "I'm mighty sorry, old fellow," declared Bob, "but it was the best I could do." Still Van made no reply. With troubled gaze Bob regarded his chum. "I'd far rather Maitland had knocked me out," he ventured at last. Stooping, he put his hand on Van's shoulder. Van roused himself and looked up into his friend's face with one of his quick smiles. "It's all right, Bob," he said. "Don't you fuss about me any more. You were a trump to get me off as well as you did. I'll take my medicine without whimpering. I ought to bless my stars that my banishment from athletics is only temporary. Suppose I had been smashed up so I could never play another game like that little kid, Tim McGrew," he shuddered. "It was just sheer luck that saved me. Why, do you suppose, he should have been the one to be crippled and I go scot free?" he observed meditatively. "I don't know. Maybe because there is something in the world that only you can do. My father believes that." "Do you?" "I don't know."