Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/74

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
62
DON-A-DREAMS

"imported" in the conventional lawns, the perfect oaks, the carved and battlemented grey walls; and he had the same vague feeling of dissatisfaction that was to irritate him again when he heard the careful "English accent" of some of his teachers. But while he was still looking, a "practice team" of young athletes in the dirt-brown costumes of the football field came running out on the campus, "passing" the ball and dodging with it; and Conroy pricked up his interest with a quick change of expression. "Say, Don," he said, "I'll bet that's the 'Varsity team. They've been training all summer."

Don nodded abstractedly.

"Come on," Conroy laughed. "Let's 'get into this game.'"

They were entered by the Registrar on the rolls of the University as "Donald Bailey Gregg, aged 18, Anglican," taking the course in Political Science as a preparation for the study of the law, and "Conroy Gregg McLean, aged 19, Presbyterian," a special student in Modern Languages. In respectful silence they enrolled with the spectacled professors whose lectures they were to attend. They wandered through the panelled corridors of the college buildings, walking almost on tip-toe in their efforts to prevent their heels from clattering on the hardwood floors. They found themselves a boarding-house, and unpacked their books. And Donald did all these things almost without emotion, in a sort of thoughtful dulness, incurious, and perversely sad.

When his cousin went out, after supper, to see the