"To the very stake!" vowed Jeff. Such heroic, if conditional, constancy was not to go unrewarded. A couple detached themselves from the dancers, threaded their way to a corner of the long hall and stood there in deep converse. Jeff quickened pulse and pace--for one was a Red Devil and the other wore the soft gray costume of a Friend. She was tall, this Quakeress, and the hobnobbing devil was of Jeff's own height. Jeff began to hope for a goal. Briskly limping, he came to this engrossed couple and laid a friendly hand on the devil's shoulder. "Brother," he said cordially, "will you please go to--home?" The devil recoiled an astonished step. "What? What!! Show me your license!" "Twenty-three!--Please!--there's a good devil--23! I'm the right guard for this lady, I hope. Oh, please to go home!" The devil took this request in very bad part. "Go back fifteen yards for offside play and take a drop kick at yourself!" he suggested sourly. A burly policeman, plainly conscious of fitting his uniform, paused for warning. "No scrappin' now! Don't start nothin' or I'll run in the t'ree av yees!" he said, and sauntered on, twirling a graceful nightstick. "Thee is a local man, judging from thy letters," said the Quaker lady, to relieve the somewhat strained situation. "What do they stand for? E. P.? Oh, yes--El Paso, of course!" "I saw you first!" said the Red Devil. "And with your disposition you would naturally find me more suitable. Make your choice of gridirons! Send him back to the side lines! Disqualify him for interference!" "Don't be hurried into a decision," said Jeff. "Eternity is a good while. Before it's over I'm going to be a--well, something more than a footballer. Golf, maybe--or tiddledywinks." The Quakeress glanced attentively from one to the other. "Doubtless he will do his best to forward Thy Majesty's interests," she interposed. "Why not give him a chance?" The devil shrugged his shoulders. "I always prefer to give this branch of work my personal attention," he said stiffly. "A specialty of thine?" mocked the girl. The devil bowed sulkily. "My heart is in it. Of course, if you prefer the bungling of a novice, there is no more to be said." "Thy Majesty's manners have never been questioned," murmured the Quakeress, bowing dismissal. "So kind of you!" The devil bowed deeply and turned, pausing to hurl a gloomy prophecy over his shoulder. "See you later!" he said, and stalked away with an ill grace. Pigskin hero and girl Friend, left alone, eyed each other with mutual apprehension. The girl Friend was first to recover speech. Her red lips were prim below her vizor, her eyes downcast to hide their dancing lights. Timidly she spread out fanwise the dove color of her sober costume. "How does thee like my gray gown?" "Not at all," said Jeff brutally. "You're no friend of mine, I hope."