"You can't get in this fall, and it's not so simple to work your way through." "Then," George said, "you refuse to do anything for me?" The youthful eyes squinted. George had an odd impression that they sought beyond his body to learn just what manner of man he was. The querulous voice possessed more life. "How tall are you?" "A little over six feet." "What's your weight?" George hesitated, unable to see how such questions could affect his entering college. He decided it was better to answer. "A hundred and eighty-five." "Good build!" Bailly mused. "Wish I'd had a build like that. If your mind is as well proportioned----Take your coat off. Roll up your sleeves." "What for?" George asked. Bailly arose and circled the desk. George saw that the skeleton man limped. "Because I'd like to see if the atrophying of your brain has furnished any compensations." George grinned. The portrait in the window seemed friendly. He obeyed. Bailly ran his hand over George's muscles. His young eyes widened. "Ever play football?" George shook his head doubtfully. "Not what you would call really playing. Why? Would football help?" "Provided one's the right stuff otherwise, would being a god help one climb Olympus?" Bailly wanted to know. He indicated the framed likeness in the window. "That's Bill Gregory." "Seems to me I've seen his name in the papers," George said. Bailly stared. "Without doubt, if you read the public prints at all. He exerted much useful cunning and strength in the Harvard and Yale games last fall. He was on everybody's All-American eleven. I got him into college and man-handled him through. Hence this scanty hair, these premature furrows; for although he had plenty of good common-sense, and was one of the finest boys I've ever known, he didn't possess, speaking relatively, when it came to iron-bound text-books, the brains of a dinosaur; but he had the brute force of one." "Why did you do it?" George asked. "Because he was rich?" "Young man," Bailly answered, "I am a product of this seat of learning. With all its faults--and you may learn their number for yourself some day--its success is pleasing to me, particularly at football. I am very fond of football, perhaps because it approximates in our puling, modern fashion, the classic public games of ruddier days. In other words, I was actuated by a formless emotion called Princeton spirit. Don't ask me what that is. I don't know. One receives it according to one's concept. But when I saw in Bill something finer and more determined than most men possess, I made up my mind Princeton was going to be proud of him, on the campus, on the football field, and afterward out in the world." The hollow, wrinkled face flushed.