"Last week. Thursday or Friday, I think. He'd been laid off for a day or so and I thought he'd gone a bit fine, although he's rather too phlegmatic to suffer much from nerves. Some of the high-strung chaps do go to pieces about this time and you have to nurse them along pretty carefully. But Gilbert! Well, on Saturday--yes, that was the day--he'd been reported perfectly fit by the trainer and just as a matter of form I asked him if he was ready to play. And, by Jove, he had the cheek to face me and say he wasn't well enough! It was nonsense, of course. He'd simply got scared. I told him so and dropped him. But it's curious that a boy who could do what you told of this evening could prove a quitter like that." "You say he seemed relieved when you let him go?" "Yes, he showed it plainly." "That is funny! I wonder what the truth of it is?" "Nerves, I suppose. Cold feet, as the fellows say." "Never! There's something else, old man, that you haven't got hold of. Can he play?" "Y-yes. Yes, he can play. He's the sort that comes slow and plays a bit logy, but he's steady and works hard. Not a brilliant man, you know, but dependable. He's been playing guard. Losing him has left us a bit weak on that side, too." "Why not take him back then? Look here, George, you're a good coach and all that, but you're a mighty poor judge of human nature." "Piffle!" "It's so, though. You've only got to study that chap Gilbert to see that he isn't the quitting kind. His looks show it, his manner shows it, the way he talks shows it. He's the sort that might want to quit; we all do sometimes; but he couldn't because he's got stuff in him that wouldn't let him!" "That's all well enough, Gus, but facts are facts. Gilbert _did_ quit, and quit cold on me. So theories don't count for much. And this human nature flapdoodle----" "I don't say he didn't quit. But I do say that you've made the wrong diagnosis, George. Did you talk to him? Ask him what the trouble was? Go after the symptoms?" "No, I'm no physician. He said he wasn't feeling well enough to play. I told him we had no place for quitters on the team. He had nothing to say to that. If you think I can feel the pulse and look at the tongue of every fellow----" Doctor Proctor laughed. "And take his temperature too, eh? No, I don't expect you to do that, George. But I'll tell you what I would do, and I'd do it tomorrow too. I'd call around and see Gilbert. I'd tell him that I wasn't satisfied with the explanation he'd made and I'd ask him to make a clean breast of the trouble, for he must be in some trouble or he wouldn't thank you for firing him. And then I'd stop cutting off my nose to spite my face and I'd reinstate him tomorrow afternoon!" "Hmph! The trouble with you doctors is that you're too romantic. You imagine things, you----"