"It will be pretty stiff going. They're awfully good, Greenmount. Not as good as we are, on the whole, but they've got a punter--Gridley--who's a perfect _wizard_! If they can get within a mile of our goal, he can put it over! But--we've got to win. We've simply got to--and 'You can't beat L. A. High!'" She went to watch football practice every afternoon and Carter nearly always went with her. In the evenings Jimsy came over for her help with his lessons. He had studied harder and better, this last year; his fine brain was waking, catching up with his body, but he was busier than ever, too, and his "Skipper" had still to be on deck. He was discovered, that last year, to have an unsuspected talent, Jimsy King. He could act. His class-play was an ambitious one, a late New York success, a play of sport and youngness, and Jimsy played the lead. "No," the pretty Spanish teacher said, "he didn't play that part; he _was_ it!" It was going to be fine for him at Stanford, Honor's mothering thought raced ahead. The more he had to do, the more things he was interested in.... He came in grinning a few nights before the championship game. "Say, Skipper, what do you think they gave me on that essay? A _B_. A measly _B_. Made me so sore I darn near told 'em who wrote it!" "Jimsy! You wrote it yourself, really. I just smoothed it up a little." "Yep, just a little! Well, either they're wise, or they just figured it couldn't be a top-notcher if I'd written it!" He cast himself on the couch. "Gee, Skipper, I can't work to-night! I'm a dying man! That dinner Carter bought me last night----" "Jimsy! You didn't--break training?" "No. But I skated pretty close to the edge. You know, it's funny, but when I'm out with Carter I feel like such a boob, not daring to eat this or that, or smoke or--or anything." Heresy this, from the three years' captain of L. A. High who had never considered any sacrifice worth a murmur which kept him fit for the real business of life. "Somehow, he's so keen, he makes me wish I had more in my head and--and less in my heels! You know what I mean, Skipper. He does make me look like a simp, doesn't he?" "No," said Honor, definitely. "Why, Jimsy, you're a million times bigger person than Carter. Everybody knows that. _Knowing_ things isn't everything--knowing what to wear and how to order meals at the Alexandria and reading all the new books and having been to Europe. Those things just fill in for him; they make up--a little--for the things you've had." "Do you mean that, Skipper? Is that straight?" "Of course, Jimsy--cross my heart!" It was curious, the way she was having to comfort Jimsy for not being Carter, and Carter for not being Jimsy. CHAPTER V