When the train drew into Palo Alto, Frank Lyman, the football manager, quiet and sober-faced, stood under the station-light.
"Can you come to dinner with me?" asked Diemann.
The two rode along under the oaks to the instructor's Palo Alto boarding-house. When they were alone upstairs, the manager said:
"Will you tell me about it? You got up there all right?"
"Yes," said the other, slowly; "not any too soon. The boy was conscious at the last, and knew me and talked a bit. It was all football, pretty much. I don't think he was quite clear enough to talk about other things."
"What did he say—that is, anything special?"
"No; he said he was more than sorry that he wasn't going to get in the game; it was his last and he wanted to play, but, of course, it wasn't his fault, and the college wouldn't think he had thrown them down. He'd never been a quitter, he said."
"No, never," said the manager.
"He went on in that strain a good deal; said that he wished that he could have stayed longer, just to play for them again. At the end he pressed my hand and said: 'I'll come back somehow, Die, if there is anything in it.'"
The Psychology instructor had spoken half in revery. He added quickly: "He was pretty well gone then, poor old chap, and wandering a little, and soon after that, why, he went over the line."