Laughlin heard dimly the sound of a voice in reply; Ware caught a few of the words.
“You’ll decide it to-night, won’t you?” went on Wolcott. “It’s awfully important—you can’t possibly understand without being here how important. I’m really as sound as a nut. And they do need me. It seems as if I couldn’t possibly crawl out now.”
The answer this time came more distinctly; Ware at the words and Laughlin at the tone felt their hearts drop within them. On Wolcott’s face settled an expression of black despair as he listened with hurried breath to his father’s sympathetic yet unyielding response.
“But you’ll surely write to-night,” said the boy, when his chance to speak came; “and think of it as favorably as you can, won’t you? And remember that there are lots of competent judges who don’t agree with you. It can’t be as bad as you think if it has done me so much good.” Wolcott hung up the receiver and rose.
“What does he say?”
“It’s no go, I’m afraid. He will decide to-night, and write so that the letter will get to me to-morrow morning. The only good thing he sees about football is that the players are capable of getting up so good a brief for a bad cause.”
“Does that mean that he’s laughing at us?” demanded Poole.
“No, he was in earnest. He’ll give the arguments a fair hearing, and then decide against me.”
“It won’t be a fair hearing,” said Ware, “if his mind is already made up.”
Wolcott turned sharply. “He’ll do what he thinks is right, anyway—that I’m sure of.”