First thing we knew the Millersburg game, which was always a fierce
affair, arrived; and on the morning of the game Bumpus and Van
Eiswaggon, our two star halfbacks, got notices to forget there was such
a game as football until they had taken Freshman Greek over again--they
being Seniors and remembering about as much Greek as their hats would
hold on a windy day. I'll tell you that mighty near floored us; but
virtue will pretty nearly always triumph, and when you mix a little luck
into it, it is as slippery to corner as a corporation lawyer. We had the
luck. There were two big boners, Pacey and Driggs, in college who wore
whiskers. There always are one or two landscape artists in college who
use their faces as alfalfa farms. We took Bumpus and Van Eiswaggon and
the leading man of a company that was playing at the opera house that
night over to these two Napoleons of mattress stuffing and they kindly
consented to be imitated for one day only. Old Booth and Barrett had a
tremendous layout of whiskers in his valise and before he got through he
had produced a couple of mighty close copies of Pacey and Driggs. That
afternoon the two real whisker kings went out in football suits and ran
signals with the team until their wind was gone. Then they went back
into the gym and their improved editions came out. Most of the college
cried when they found that the two eminent authorities on tonsorial art
were going to try to interfere with Millersburg's ambition, but those of
us who were on to the deal simply prayed. We prayed that the whiskers
wouldn't come off. They didn't, either. It was a grand game. We won, 20
to 0; and the school went wild over Pacey and Driggs. Even Prexy came
out of it for a little while and went into the gym to shake hands with
them. It took lively work to detain him until we could get them stripped
and laid out on the rubbing boards. They were the heroes of the school
for the rest of the year and, being honest chaps, they naturally
objected. But we persuaded them that they had saved the college with
their whiskers; and before they graduated we begged a bunch from each of
them to frame and hang up in the gym some day when the incident wasn't
quite so fresh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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