If he didn't find time for the composition--well, Mr.Daley was easy! He'd get by somehow! So Steve pegged away hard at his Latin for several days and made a very good showing, and Mr.Simkins, who had been contemplating harsh measures, took heart and hoped that further reports to the principal would be unnecessary.

But what with Latin and Greek and mathematics and history and English, that French composition was still unwritten when Thursday evening arrived.

It had been a hard day on the gridiron and Steve was pretty well fagged out when study hour came.

He had told himself for several days that at the last moment he would buckle down and do that composition, but to-night, with a hard lesson in geometry staring him in the face, the thing looked impossible.

Across the study table, Tom was diligently digging into Greek, his French composition already finished and ready to be handed in on the morrow.