"Question is whether Regan will come," said Stover doubtfully. "By George, I'll make him. We'll go right out together and put it to him." Which they did; and Regan, yielding to the open cordiality of Hungerford, accepted and promised to change at the end of his week. In the second week, having satisfactorily arranged his affairs--by what slender margin no one ever knew--Regan reported for practise. He had played a little football in the Middle West and, though his knowledge was crude, he learned slowly, and what he learned he never lost. His great strength, and a certain quality which was moral as well as physical, very shortly won him the place of right guard, where with each week he strengthened his hold. Regan's introduction at the eating-joint had been achieved without the embarrassment Stover had feared. He came and went with a certain natural dignity that was not assumed, but was inherent in the simplicity of his character. He entered occasionally into the conversation and always, when the others were finished and tarrying over the tobacco, brought his plate to a vacant place and ate his supper; but, that through, though often urged, went his purposeful way, with always that certain solitary quality about him that made approach difficult and had left him friendless. On the fourth afternoon of practise, as Stover, restraining the raging impatience within him, resolved that at all costs he would not show the chafing, went to his place on the imprisoning bench, watching with famished eyes the contending lines, Dana, without warning, called from the open field: "Stover! Stover! Out here!" He jumped up, oblivious of everything but the sudden thumping of his heart and the curious stir in the ranks of the candidates. "Here, leave your sweater," shouted Tompkins, who had repeated the summons. "Oh, yes." Clumsily entangled in the folds of his sweater, he struggled to emerge. Tompkins, amid a roar of laughter, caught the arms and freed him, grinning at the impetuousness with which Stover went scudding out. On the way he passed the man he was replacing, returning rebelliously with a half antagonistic, half apprehensive glance at him. "Take left end on the scrub," said Dana, who was not in the line of scrimmage. "Farley, give him the signals."