"Say, Dink, I wish I could make you understand--just--just how white we think it was!" The two rushed away leaving Tough McCarty to have his say. Both stood awkwardly, frightened before the possibility of a display of sentiment. "Look here," said Tough firmly, and then stopped, drew a long breath and continued: "Say, you and I have sort of formed up a sort of vendetta and all that sort of thing, haven't we?" "We have." "Now, I'm not going to call that off. I don't suppose you'd want it, either." "No, I wouldn't!" "We've got to have a good, old, slam-bang fight sooner or later and then, perhaps, it'll be different. I'm not coming around asking you to be friends, or anything like that sort of rot, you know, but what I want you to know is this--is this--what I want you to understand is just how darned _white_ that was of you!" "All right," said Stover frigidly, because he was tremendously moved and in terror of showing it. "That's not what I wanted to say," said Tough, frowning terrifically and kicking the floor. "I mean--I say, you know what I mean, don't you?" "All right," said Stover gruffly. "And I say," said Tough, remembering only one line of all he had come prepared to say, "if you'll let me, Stover, I should consider it an honor to shake your hand." Dink gave his hand, trembling a little. "Of course you understand," said Tough who thought he comprehended Stover's silence, "of course we fight it out some day." "All right," said Stover gruffly. Tough McCarty went away. Dink, left alone, clad in his voluminous football trousers, sat staring at the door, clasping his hands tensely between his knees, and something inside of him welled up, dangerously threatening his eyes--something feminine, to be choked instantly down. He rose angrily, flung back his hair and filled his lungs. Then he stopped. "What the deuce are they all making such a fuss for?" he said. "I only told the truth." He struggled into his jersey, still trying to answer the problem. In his abstraction he drew a neat part in his hair before perceiving the _faux pas_, he hurriedly obliterated the effete mark. "I guess," he said, standing at the window still pondering over the new attitude toward himself--"I guess, after all, I don't know it all. Tough McCarty--well, I'll be damned!"