ROONEY'S TOUCHDOWN
Football,” said Big Joe, the friendly waiter, laying down the sporting page of my paper with a reminiscent sigh, “ain't what it was twenty years ago. When I played the game it was some different from wood-tag and pump-pump-pull-away. It's went to the dogs.”
“Used to be a star, huh?” said I. “What college did you play with, Joe?”
“No college,” said Joe, “can claim me for its alma meter.”
He seated himself comfortably across the table from me, as the more sociably inclined waiters will do in that particular place. “I don't know that I ever was a star. But I had the punch, and I was as tough as that piece of cow you're trying to stick your fork into. And I played in one game the like of which has never been pulled off before or since.”
“Tell me about it,” said I, handing him a cigar. Joe sniffed and tasted it suspiciously, and having made sure that it wasn't any brand sold on the premises, lighted it. There was only one other customer, and it was near closing time.
“No, sir,” he said, “it wasn't any kissing game in my day. Ever hear of a place called Kingstown, Illinois? Well, some has and some hasn't. It's a burg of about five thousand souls and it's on the Burlington. Along about the time of the Spanish war it turned out a football team that used to eat all them little colleges through there alive.
“The way I joined was right unexpected to me. I happened into the place on a freight train, looking for a job, and got pinched for a hobo. When they started to take me to the lock-up I licked the chief of police and the first deputy chief of police, and the second deputy, but the other member of the force made four, and four was too many for me. I hadn't been incarcerated ten minutes before a pleasant looking young fellow who had seen the rumpus comes up to the cell door with the chief, and says through the bars:
“'How much do you weigh?'
“'Enough,' says I, still feeling sore, 'to lick six longhaired dudes like you.'