From School to Battle Field: A Story of the War Days (Illustrated)

"If there's anything I hate more than a rainy Saturday, call me a
tadpole!" said the taller of two boys who, with their chins on their
arms and their arms on the top of the window-sash, were gazing gloomily
out over a dripping world. It was the second day of an east wind, and
every boy on Manhattan Island knows what an east wind brings to New York
City, or used to in days before the war, and this was one of them.

"And our nine could have lammed that Murray Hill crowd a dozen to
nothing!" moaned the shorter, with disgust in every tone. "Next Saturday
the 'Actives' have that ground, and there'll be no decent place to
play--unless we can trap them over to Hoboken. What shall we do,
anyhow?"

The taller boy, a curly-headed, dark-eyed fellow of sixteen, whose long
legs had led to his school name of Snipe, turned from the contemplation
of an endless vista of roofs, chimneys, skylights, clothes-lines, all
swimming in an atmosphere of mist, smoke, and rain, and glanced back at
the book-laden table.

"There's that Virgil," he began, tentatively.

"Oh, Virgil be blowed!" broke in the other on the instant. "It's bad
enough to have to work week-days. I mean what can we do for--fun?" and
the blue eyes of the youngster looked up into the brown of his taller
chum.