Wolcott read the account the next morning when he returned from his first recitation, and hooted with amusement. Mr. Lindsay read it at his breakfast table and shuddered. He carried the paper down town with him to his office to keep it out of Mrs. Lindsay’s hands; and all the way down he grew more and more indignant. The first thing he did at the office was to call up the school authorities at Seaton and demand a report of his son’s condition. The reassuring answer did not change his purpose. He sat down at his desk and wrote the misguided youth a letter, ordering him peremptorily to play football no more. Then, having by parental ukase rescued his son from threatening peril, he took up with relief the business of the day. Wolcott received the letter that afternoon, as he came in from the field where he had been watching the practice. He read it through in amazement. He reread it with quickened breath and a mist forming before his eyes. And then, big fellow as he was, he threw himself on his bed and wept. CHAPTER XX A ROUND ROBIN There was keen unhappiness at the training table that night, and discussion rampant. It was no longer a question of losing one man who was a little better than another, but of parting with a star. Butler was no worse than he had been all through the season; but to play Butler now in place of Lindsay was like playing a substitute. And in student opinion it was not only unfair and unnecessary, but preposterously silly, to take a strapping, husky lad like Lindsay out of the game, when during the whole season, as an inexperienced learner, he had been mauled up and down the field by heavier men and rougher teams, and had emerged smiling and strong, with red cheeks and clear eyes, and every joint working as if on ball-bearings. This opinion was general. Only Lindsay’s presence and Lindsay’s evident respect for his father, even when he felt that his father was hopelessly wrong, checked the more violent expression upon the tongue. Various were the suggestions offered. “Don’t receive the letter,” advised Hendry. “It was lost in the mail.” “Say nothing and keep right on playing,” counselled Read. “It’s only nine days to the game now.” “Play under an assumed name,” urged Milliken. “He won’t be there to see.” All this Wolcott received with a contemptuous smile, and Laughlin gave no heed. Both knew that the advisers were not serious. “I’ll be over about eight with Poole and Ware,” said Laughlin, as they rose from the dinner table, “and we’ll see if there isn’t some way out of the hole. I don’t propose to give you up till we’ve tried every chance there is. I’m going over now to consult Grim. He may know of some way of influencing Mr. Lindsay.”