“Dirty football!” ejaculated Laughlin. “That’s true; but we shan’t have that in the game with Hillbury.”
“Put it down, just the same,” said Poole. “Let’s give him all the facts.”
“Now about the newspaper stories,” said Ware, looking up after a few minutes of scribbling, during which he had translated “dirty football” into terms less concise but more comprehensible to Mr. Lindsay. “Wouldn’t it be well to send him Walter Camp’s investigations of football accidents reported in the newspapers, and those figures that a Western college professor[[1]] got out? I have them both somewhere.”
[1]. Professor Edwin Grant Dexter, of the University of Illinois, in the Educational Review, April, 1903.
“That’s good,” said Laughlin, “and give him a good straight statement of this poor chap’s condition. Collins said to-day he never saw a fellow thrive on the game like Lindsay. Gaining all the time, aren’t you, Wolcott?”
Wolcott nodded without a smile. His heart was wholly with the arguments, but that they would prove effective he had little hope. He knew well the strength of his father’s convictions, the honesty and sincerity of his desire to do the best possible for his only son. He could hardly be imagined as yielding to the arguments and sentiments of a lot of boys.
“Who’ll explain about that slap in the head and taking him out of the Harvard Second game?” asked Ware.
“I’ll do that,” said Laughlin, “in my part.”