The Mark of the Knife. Ernst Clayton Holt

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      Mrs. Campbell let her fork fall into her plate with a clatter. "I'm going to see Doctor Wells about it!" she declared. "Such a condition is perfectly shameful! Why, it's – it's – "

      "Now, mother, don't do anything like that," warned Tracey. "You'd only spoil what chances I've got."

      "Well, if they can't treat you fairly, I'd rather have you leave the school. Your father will have something to say about this when he comes home. I don't doubt that he'll go right up there and make them stand around a bit."

      "By the time he gets home I'll be on the team," said Tracey.

      In the afternoon Campbell and his satellite rode out into the country without the chauffeur and Tracey took occasion to race any automobile that would accept an obvious challenge. It was his particular delight to drive alongside a car of one of the cheaper makes and to pretend that he was doing his utmost to pass and in that way to lure the small-car owner into competition. Sometimes he succeeded and after he had made his victim believe that the big car was about to be vanquished he would step hard on the accelerator and leave the scene of competition in a cloud of dust. On such occasions Bassett felt called upon to turn and thumb his nose at the crestfallen driver.

      At dusk the pair came back to Greensboro for refreshment and Campbell declared that he would take Bassett to a "regular place."

      Greensboro was a bustling town in which there were department stores, theaters and restaurants. The stores and theaters were closed, but the restaurants were open, though Sunday business was dull. Campbell drove the big car down a side street and stopped in front of a building that was decorated with an Oriental sign announcing to the world that this was the Eating Palace of Chuan Kai. "Here's where I feed you the dinner I owe you," he said.

      Tracey seemed to be well known to the Oriental managers of the restaurant. Chuan Kai himself, a yellow Chinaman in American clothes, greeted him in with a smile that showed his tusks; he directed the two to a table set in a little booth that was decorated with panels showing dragons and temples. Here Tracey and Bassett lolled back at ease, ate chow mein and chop suey with mushrooms, drank tea from small cups without handles and smoked till the air of the little booth was blue.

      Chuan Kai stole softly in and out and occasionally glanced with satisfaction at the two students. They were spending money freely and the wily old Oriental knew that young Campbell would drop a fat tip into his yellow palm when it so pleased him to leave the restaurant. Silently the Chinese waiters in their slippers and loose trousers slipped in and out of the mysterious regions where the strange food was prepared. Tracey, displaying nonchalance for Bassett's benefit, declared that old Chuan Kai kept "a dozen Chinks on the job", and that they all slept in rooms directly above the restaurant. The persons who sat at the inlaid tables and leaned heavily on their elbows as they scanned the much-fingered menus were a nondescript lot – some the riff-raff of the town who found it cheaper to eat at Kai's than to eat elsewhere, others, more respectable in appearance, who doubtless had been drawn to the place by curiosity.

      "Do you really want to give him a good jolt?" said Bassett to Campbell.

      "I told you I did."

      "Then why not try my plan? I know it will work."

      Bassett leaned forward and talked in low tones as if fearing to be overheard, but there was no danger of that, for the other persons in the restaurant were too much interested in their own affairs to eavesdrop on two young fellows chatting in a booth.

      At eight o'clock Campbell and Bassett sauntered out and Chuan Kai received his fat tip. The big car rolled out to the "mansion" on the hillock and, when the chauffeur had been found, sped to Ridgley School. Five minutes before nine it discharged its burden at the doors of Gannett Hall.

      During the week that followed there was a frenzy of football talk in every Ridgley dormitory. At chapel on Tuesday morning Doctor Wells granted Neil Durant's request to speak to the school. The football captain mounted the platform a little nervously, but he made a straightforward speech in which he appealed for more candidates for the scrub. "There are a good many likely-looking fellows in this school who have never tried for the football team," he said. "It's late in the season, but there's a chance for them now on the scrub and, if they show any real ability, an opportunity with the team. We've got to do our best to beat Jefferson this year and we can't afford to overlook good material even now, so if you want to show your school spirit come down to the field this afternoon."

      The result of the speech and of numerous personal appeals was that a dozen new players appeared with the scrub that afternoon; they were not a remarkable addition in respect to quality, however, and after a couple of days of looking them over Coach Murray remarked to Neil Durant that he was afraid that none of them would "set the world on fire."

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