"Not so bad. Some fat but there's muscle behind it."
Neale made way for Atkins of the '99 team, an alumnus always hanging around the squad every season. He was supposed to be devoting his heart's blood to bond-brokerage, down on Wall Street, but, a wistful exile from the world to which he had given the passion of his youth, he always came uptown in the fall to watch football practice. Also, which was of much more importance, he spent his summer vacation looking up available football material, "out in the bushes" as he expressed it. He now stopped in front of the Captain with a grin of pride, and jerking his head towards an approaching player, he inquired, "Well, how about him?"
McAlpine replied with enthusiasm, "Built like a piano, isn't he? Where'd you raise him?"
Neale followed their eyes and saw a squat, swarthy, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linesman rolling past them towards the Gym. door.
"Where'd I raise him? Stole him from the U. of P. Father's something or other up in the coal-fields—oodles of money. Son was all set up to go to Pennsy, but we got him down here and led him up and down the Great White Way a couple of nights. Nobody could coax him away now—unless there's a University at Paris."
McAlpine stared after the powerful back and shoulders filling the doorway. "God, what a brute! Baby hippo walking on his hind legs. What's his breed anyway?"
"Some sort of hunky. I'm not up on their stud book, but I'd say off-hand he's a cross between a Slovak cart-horse and a Ruthenian wild boar—lots of space in his garret, but you can't hurt him with a pick-ax."
"But, how in merry hell, are we going to keep him eligible? What courses did you get him entered for?"
"Oh, assorted snap courses—English Lit. mostly. And he has a tame tutor that lives with him and does the studying. How'd you suppose he ever got through High School?"
Neale left them talking and stepped into the Gym., admiring enviously the massive bone-structure of the new student of English Literature.