“That’s what I gathered,” said Hugh. “I mean, those fellows I saw play last Autumn didn’t seem to be having much sport, you know; didn’t appear to be there for――for the fun they’d get out of it, if you know what I mean. It looked to me very much like hard work. The only time they showed any pleasure was when they scored on the other chaps. Then they’d wave their arms and jump up and down like mad. And a thousand or so Johnnies in the seats would cheer themselves hoarse. But that was ’varsity football, and I fancied you fellows here at prep school would go in more for the fun of it.” “Oh, we get plenty of fun out of it,” said Bert. “We all like it, or we wouldn’t do it. That is――――” He hesitated. “Maybe some of us do go in for football more for the glory than the sport,” he went on thoughtfully. “I guess it’s got to be rather a――a fashion. It’s like this, Hugh. A fellow who makes his School Team is a bit important and he gets some reputation and fellows like to know him. And then, when he goes up to college he finds it easier. If he keeps on making good he meets fellows he wants to know, fellows who can help him, you see, and he probably makes one of the sophomore societies and――there he is.” “Yes?” said Hugh questioningly. “I don’t mean that all the fellows who try for the team think about all that. They don’t. Lots of them play football because they love it. But now, take Ted Trafford, for instance. Ted’s a bully sort of a fellow, but he isn’t――well, brilliant. Ted started out with the intention of doing just what he has done, that is, being captain of the team in his senior year. Ted’s going to Princeton next fall. He will get there with the――the prestige of having captained the Grafton School Football Team, and it’s going to be a lot easier for him. If Ted went up there unknown he would have hard work getting anywhere, probably. He’s just a big, good-looking, good-natured fellow, and he isn’t a smart student and he wouldn’t shine at anything outside of football. His folks aren’t wealthy, although I guess they have enough money to live on, and they haven’t any special social position in New York, I suppose. But that won’t matter in Ted’s case because he will go up there and make the freshman team and then get on the ’varsity and make a name for himself. He will meet fellows of money and position that way, have a good time in college and fall into something soft when he gets through.” “I see,” said Hugh. “It’s that way to some extent, I fancy, on the other side. I mean that if a chap makes a name for himself at school he finds it easier getting in when he goes up to Oxford or Cambridge. It’s quite natural.” He was silent a moment. Then: “I dare say that explains why you chaps go in for sports so seriously. You’re working for something, eh?”