The words were evidently spoken in jest, yet underneath, but half covered by the air of mock tragedy assumed, rang clear the real tone of bitter disappointment and regret. Poole said not a word in reply. Wolcott himself, unfamiliar as the school spirit still was to him, understood partially, and was silent. He had heard among the first items of school gossip that Tompkins, who had pitched for the school the year before, had failed his preliminaries and been forbidden by the Faculty to play again. The tale, related among a dozen others, had at the time made little impression on him. Now, with the example before him of the glory of what was really but minor athletic achievement; with these two gloomy faces beside him, heavy and despondent at the reminder of Tompkins’s disability, he got his first true notion of the serious part played by athletics in the life of the school. Instantly Laughlin’s words came back to him, “It is a great thing to win a Hillbury game; it’s fine just to play in one!” The gymnasium suddenly stretched to the dimensions of a football field; the circle of good-natured spectators swelled to a mighty crowd, filling the benches, tier on tier all about the great rectangle, enthusiastic, wild, hoarse with cheering; and in the centre, watched by thousands of eyes, he stood, Wolcott Lindsay, holding his place in the line of red. The signal is for him, the ball comes back, with one tremendous impulse in which his whole body seems to bound like a mighty steel spring he sweeps his antagonist back and opens a way for the ball! It was the impulse of the athletic temperament, the call to action of nerves and muscles yearning for the conflict. But Wolcott knew only that it was a vision—a vision that quickly faded, leaving him to the sad reaction of fact. There was no Lindsay the football player, but only Lindsay the tenderfoot, the calf, who had no more chance of making the eleven than Marchmont or the twins or little thirteen-year-old Simmons, who sat in the corner seat among the juniors, and answered all the questions. Outside he met Laughlin, flannel-shirted and mittened. “How was the show?” asked the captain. “Good?” “Fine! Weren’t you there?” “No; had to shovel snow all the afternoon.” Laughlin went whistling on to his room and his lessons. “Snow shovellers and furnace cleaners!” thought Lindsay, bitterly. “Those are the fellows who make football players. I guess March isn’t so far out when he calls them brutes and bullies. It can’t be a gentleman’s game.” Almost unintentionally he took the direction of Marchmont’s room. “Well, how did it turn out? Dull as a sermon, wasn’t it?” “Not exactly,” replied Lindsay, hesitating to own his opinion in the face of authority. “Some of it I thought pretty good.” Marchmont laughed: “That’s because it’s new to you. The poorest circus has it beaten by a mile. I’ve read a novel ’most through this afternoon.”