“'Dem vas goot days, Chimmie,' says this here Breittmann, 'but der naturalist, Chimmie, he is also the good days. What?'
“The next day, just before the game, I got my first glimpse of this Rooney when he come downstairs with Breittmann and they both piled into a cab. He wore a long overcoat over his football togs, and he had so many headpieces and nose guards and things on to him all you could see of his face was a bit of reddish looking whisker at the sides.
“'He's Irish by the name,' says 1, 'and the way he carries them shoulders and swings his arms he must have learned to play football by carrying the hod.' He wasn't a big man, neither, and I thought he handled himself kind of clumsy.
“When we got out to the football field and that Lincoln College bunch jumped out of their bus and began to pass the ball around, the very first man we see is that there Jerry Coakley.
“Yes, sir, sold out!
“Dolan and me ran over to the Lincoln captain.
“'You don't play that man!' says Dolan, mad as a hornet, pointing at Jerry. Jerry, he stood with his arms crossed, grinning and chuckling to himself, bold as Abraham Lincoln on the burning deck and built much the same.
“'Why not?' says the college captain, 'he's one of our students.'
“'Him?' says I. 'Why, he's the village truck-driver here!' And that there Jerry had the nerve to wink at me.
“'Mr. Coakley matriculated at Lincoln College a week ago,' says the captain, Jerry he grinned more and more, and both teams had gathered into a bunch around us.