“End one year; right half the next two.”
The shrewd gray eyes of the coach swept him up and down.
“H’m; you were the bridge-scrap leader, weren’t you? Come in here and strip and let’s have a look at you.”
Larry took his “physical” without a flaw; heart action perfectly normal, weight within a pound and three ounces of what his age and height called for, chest expansion well above normal. In addition, his summer’s work on the railroad-building job in the Colorado mountains had made him as hard as nails.
“You’ll do,” said the coach, and sent him to the field.
If he had been twice as finical as he was, he couldn’t have found any fault with his reception. The memorable bridge scrap was still fresh in mind, and his subsequent refusal to turn out for athletics seemed to be forgotten on the spot. Naturally, he was cast at once for Freshman foot-ball; and after a hard-working hour in the field he went to the showers with his blood dancing and with the feeling that perhaps, after all, he had been overhasty in jumping to the conclusion that his family’s station in life had anything to do with the way the fellows were regarding him.
But the good effect of this first little dip into the bigger pool was all spoiled while he was dressing in the locker-room. The steel lockers were arranged in double rows, with dressing alleys between; and in the next row two of his fellow classmen, McKnight and Rogers, out of sight but, unhappily, not out of hearing, were discussing him.
“Well, the offish worm turned out, at last, didn’t he?” McKnight was saying. “That’s Dickie Maxwell’s doing, I’ll bet. Don’t see how Maxwell can room with a fellow like him.”
“He may be a grouch, but he certainly can play ‘feet-ball,’” Rogers replied. “I’d hate to have him on a team against me.”
“He’s the rough stuff”—this was McKnight again—“but that’s about what you’d expect. They say his dad’s a section-man, or something, on a railroad. Queer how such fellows break in.”