But this was not all, for on the afternoon when the trials took place,--in the big, dim room of empty seats, with a few judges scattered lonesomely about,--as I took my turn and was walking to the platform, I felt a hearty clap on the shoulder and heard Ellis whisper, “Good luck to you, Priddy!” exactly the way in which he had encouraged his men in the big football contests. I walked to the platform thrilled through by the magnificence of Ellis’ sporting spirit. I felt that if any other man won, it should be Ellis. I did not do well with my oration. I was marked down. Ellis’ turn came. I watched him, admiringly, as he strode to the platform in his masterful way. His gestures, over which we had worked with patience, were still undisciplined, and at times his voice thundered too much. But he came down with the consciousness of having done his best. He was declared eligible for the final contest. Later, when the final contest took place, Ellis, who had gone into it with the loftiest ideal of all the contestants, had the thrill of knowing that he was the winner of the prize. He had won both sides of the medal, the athletic and literary. “At least,” he said to me, in bashful comment on his victory, “I think that some folks will be persuaded that a football man may have some interest in scholarship.” Garvin, a fellow Senior, illustrates another phase of college life and thought. He was a clever individual and one of the editors of the college newspaper. His “den,” as he loved to term his narrow room in Wise Hall, had been made to resemble as much as possible an editorial sanctum. Galley proofs, daubed black with corrections, revisions and proof marks, had been hung over his desk, as if to forever remind him that the true function of an editor is revision, as it is the true function of life. Original artists’ drawings, in charcoal, pen and ink and pencil, were mixed in with Gibson Girl sketches on the walls. Three samples of “the worst contributions ever sent into the paper” were framed in _passe partout_ and hung over the brick of the fireplace where the curious might read them; one was a Freshman poem whose theme had never been understood and for the interpretation of which Garvin had a standing offer of a box of cigars. The “poem” said something about “the ancient cow, sitting munchingly on the steep broadside of green, fertile country,” and then went on to irrelevantly bring in various other cattle, scenes, and people in such an unexplained matter-of-fact way that the mind was in a whirl at the end. The other two contributions were attempts at stories, and judged from the first pages of manuscript exhibited, ended in being nothing more than attempts.