CHAPTER XX
A ROUND ROBIN
There was keen unhappiness at the training table that night, and discussion rampant. It was no longer a question of losing one man who was a little better than another, but of parting with a star. Butler was no worse than he had been all through the season; but to play Butler now in place of Lindsay was like playing a substitute. And in student opinion it was not only unfair and unnecessary, but preposterously silly, to take a strapping, husky lad like Lindsay out of the game, when during the whole season, as an inexperienced learner, he had been mauled up and down the field by heavier men and rougher teams, and had emerged smiling and strong, with red cheeks and clear eyes, and every joint working as if on ball-bearings. This opinion was general. Only Lindsay’s presence and Lindsay’s evident respect for his father, even when he felt that his father was hopelessly wrong, checked the more violent expression upon the tongue.
Various were the suggestions offered. “Don’t receive the letter,” advised Hendry. “It was lost in the mail.”
“Say nothing and keep right on playing,” counselled Read. “It’s only nine days to the game now.”
“Play under an assumed name,” urged Milliken. “He won’t be there to see.”
All this Wolcott received with a contemptuous smile, and Laughlin gave no heed. Both knew that the advisers were not serious.
“I’ll be over about eight with Poole and Ware,” said Laughlin, as they rose from the dinner table, “and we’ll see if there isn’t some way out of the hole. I don’t propose to give you up till we’ve tried every chance there is. I’m going over now to consult Grim. He may know of some way of influencing Mr. Lindsay.”
But at eight o’clock, when the captain appeared with his two counsellors, he had a discouraging report to lay before the meeting. Mr. Graham declined to interfere. Mr. Lindsay had not consulted him, and he certainly should not assume unasked the responsibility of urging that a boy be exposed to what a parent considered a dangerous strain.
“Never mind,” said Ware. “I didn’t expect any help from him, anyway. It’s up to us to convince Mr. Lindsay, if he’s to be convinced. Now, Wolcott, first tell us exactly what the trouble is. Are you weak somewhere, or is your father scared by newspaper stories, or what is the matter? Did he ever see a football game?”
“I don’t think he ever did,” replied Wolcott, answering the last of the triple volley of questions. “The fact is, he never has liked the modern system of college athletics. He says that in his time they used to sit under the trees and talk of what they were going to do in the world, and a prize oration was the highest honor of college life; now the ideal is a professional ball player or a pugilist; and instead of gathering to listen to a debate or an essay, they troop to the field and howl for a lot of gladiators. I’ve heard that kind of thing so many times that I can repeat it word for word,” he added with a melancholy smile. “Most athletes, according to his idea, are an inferior lot who never are heard of after they leave college. And then, as you say, he reads all the stories of injuries in the papers and takes them all for gospel truth.”