he added, "Professor Gaines is our football coach at Sanford."
"What—'Plugger' coaching football?" Shaw suddenly roared. "Good night! Gainesey, old boy, you've been keeping something from us all these years. Next thing, you'll be telling me that Harlow is the town's champion dancer. Well, we certainly develop—we sure do. Meantime, let's go in, boys, to the big feed. 'Pep' Young, the chairman of the committee, tells me it's a wow."
They filed in toward the dining room, around the entrance of which another group of noisily chattering men of all ages were gathered. Shaw was enthusiastically greeted. Professor Gaines received a much milder salutation. The Sanford principal seemed a little out of place in this gathering, Harold could not help noting. It was being registered in Harold's eagerly absorbing mind that his mentor was hardly the typical Tate man. "Shock" Shaw, now, was different. Breezy, loquacious, back-slapping, broad-shouldered, popular, the redoubtable "Shock" was beginning to assume in the estimation of the high-school guest from Sanford the proportions of a hero.
But in the large, well-filled dining room other interests took Harold's attention. The
