“Why,” exclaimed Phillip, “I should think that ignorance was something of a drawback to a fellow.” “Yes, that’s the popular impression, but, like most popular impressions, it’s quite erroneous. It is ignorance that wins every time. Take your own case for example. You know no more of the game than you have learned from seeing it played on three occasions. You are free from prejudices; you do not insist that the ball must be handled in a certain way. It makes no difference to you whether the quarter holds it with a stiff hand or a loose one, whether he has the belly of the ball or the end. You haven’t played the game until you’ve got yourself into a rut hemmed in by customs and precedents. Consequently, if left to your own devices you will play the game naturally. If it comes easier to you to kick the ball with your heel than with your toe, you’ll do it. If you think you can obtain better results by tackling the referee instead of the runner, you’ll do that. Your mind, so far as the game of football is concerned, is virgin. You learn the game naturally, as a child learns to talk. You will not be restricted by rules, regulations or customs; and so who knows but that you’ll improve on the present methods?” Phillip smiled doubtfully and shot a glance at the speaker’s face. But Guy was looking straight ahead, thoughtfully serious, as though enjoying a vision of a gridiron contest in which the players, emancipated from the iron heel of the despotic coach, were battling each as his natural impulse taught. Chester was grinning; but then he generally was grinning, thought Phillip. “But there would always have to be rules, wouldn’t there?” he asked. “Not at all,” answered Guy calmly. “Rules are laws; laws are unnatural mandates invented by man to govern the conduct of persons whose conscionable impulses have been so thwarted that they no longer have the power to influence.” Chester gurgled rapturously. “In football,” continued Guy, “there is a rule which prohibits a player from throttling his opponent or striking him with his fist. Now where is the advantage of that rule? It very often happens――I know that it has in my case, at all events――that a player can put his opponent out of the play more speedily and certainly by striking him forcibly between the eyes with the fist than by pushing him to one side. The natural impulse is to do so. Then why not do it?” “But――but――――” Phillip stuttered in his amazement. “But that would be brutal! You might――might injure the other fellow.”