“You’d miss the ball games this spring,” said Diamond.
“Go to!” said the big fellow. “What are the ball games? A lot of fellows get up and bat a ball around, while another lot of fellows chase it. They run and whoop and throw the ball and get covered with perspiration. It is a most distressing spectacle. Ball games, indeed! Go to, I say—go to!”
“And the spring boat race—you’d miss that,” said Harry.
“Another distressing spectacle. Nine men in a boat, eight of them working, working, working as if their lives depended on it. They strain every muscle, their faces are contorted with the agony of it, their eyes bulge with distress, their breasts heave as they try to breathe, and when the race is over some of them are like rags run through a wringer. Again I say, go to!”
“But you used to be enthusiastic over such things. You played football yourself.”
“Which goes to show what a fool a fellow can make of himself. Of all things football is the worst. That is a real battle for life between twenty-two mad and furious fools, every one of whom is thirsting for gore. They tear at one another, like famished wolves, buck one another, fling one another to the ground, jump on one another. Did I play football?”
“Surely you did.”
“It’s a far reach from such folly to the wisdom of to-day. Ten thousand dollars would not induce me to engage once again in a real game of football.”
“But think of the excitement—the glory.”
“The excitement is the delirium of fools. The glory—what is glory? How long does it last? Last fall, when Merry carried the ball over the line for a touchdown on Jarvis Field, with half the Harvard team on his back, he covered himself with glory. For a little time he was the talk of the college. His picture was in the papers. He was dined, and he would have been wined—that is, if he would have been. But now—now how is it? Spring has come, football is forgotten and his glory is fading. Everybody is talking of baseball and the way the nine will be made up.”