Stover himself was firmly imbued with the notion that winning is the sole test, and reason for existence, of an athletic team. If a team couldn’t win, in his opinion it might as well disband; there was no sense in keeping it up. These views he held directly from his father, by example and precept. Stover, Senior, prided himself on “getting there” in business. Those who didn’t get there, who got only halfway there, or refused to sacrifice certain principles in order to get there, were in his eyes flabby failures. Protests represented but the inevitable wails of the defeated, criticism the expression of envy; the man who won could afford to laugh at both. Stover, Junior, accepting fully the idea that defeat was inherently disgraceful, applied it to his own life in his own way. He was ashamed to be on a losing team. Low marks in examinations put him sadly out of humor, for they classed him with the despised unsuccessful. For the same reason, notwithstanding a bold air of indifference, it irked him sorely that he was not popular.
Dunn likewise came to recognize that he had made a misstep. He said to Harrison next morning, “I guess you fellows were right about that Callahan matter; it wouldn’t have done much good, anyway.” Harrison, glad to perceive that Dunn understood the falseness of his position, answered pleasantly, and let the incident slip from his mind. He found enough material for anxiety in the problem of Talbot’s strained knee, the perfecting of Mac in the use of signals, and the elaboration of a new scheme for a forward pass from a fake kick.
Callahan’s offer cropped up again on Friday night, as Wilmot and Harrison sat in Pete’s bedroom, drawing out a long good night. The pair had brought in a rubber to work on the injured knee, distrusting Pete’s fiercely repeated assertion, “It’s all right and doesn’t need any rubbing.” Determined to see that their trouble was not taken in vain, they stayed on during the process, in the face of rudely inhospitable suggestions from Talbot that they go home and let him alone. They lingered still after the masseur had departed.
“Anything new about Jason’s friend, the coach?” asked Wilmot, making a try with his cap at the top of a brass candlestick which stood on the mantel. The cap fell short, and Talbot put his foot on it. Wilmot flung himself back in his chair.
“What coach?”
“The one that blew in at Adams’s the other day and offered to sell state secrets. Harrigan or Cullinan or Hooligan—I don’t remember his name.”
The look of disgust on Harrison’s face showed that he understood. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of him since.”
“I wonder if Jason wrote him,” mused Wilmot. “You ought to have given me the job, Harry. I’d have done it in slick style.”
Harrison shook his head. “It would be taking too much notice of him. Jason came up next day and acknowledged that it was all wrong. I don’t think he did anything more about it.”
“Jason doesn’t know right from wrong, anyway,” observed Wilmot.