Cinder Path Tales

112 CINDER-PATH TALES personal satisfaction of having added to it. All of them were practical men, who had in days gone by carried their college colors, and Tom Furness had been a mighty good athlete, whohad put a record where it stood untouched for a good five years. Tom was tall, fair, and sanguine. An optimist by nature, he never dreamed of anything but success, was a favorite with the graduates, while the collegeworshipped him. I never saw the man who could put heart into a losing teamlike Tom Furness. Just below him sat " Doc" Peckham, dark and silent. He was short and brown bearded, the very opposite of Tom, and had a rather embarrassing way of punctur­ ing Tom's pretty bubbles. He wasnot so well liked as Furness, but was after all fully as valuable anadviser. He had a good practice in the city, but managed, in some way,to leave it whenever he was needed. Griffith and Smith were men who, as a rule, agreed with the majority, and myself in particular; so they were quite asuseful as if they had been perpetually inventing foolish plans. We had been silent a full minute, which is not long for a crowd of college " gray- beards," when Tom Furness jumped to his feet with the air of a man who has made up his mind, expectsopposition, but is still con-