No answer.
“You did want to play? You would have played in spite of studies, if they had shown the proper respect for your ability, wouldn’t you?”
No reply.
“You didn’t organize that Freshman team out of love for the Freshman team, but with an idea of beating a fellow you didn’t like. Isn’t that true?”
No response, except that Larry shoved his hands more deeply into his pockets and slid lower into his chair.
Krag smoked in silence for a time. Then he arose, knocked the dottle from his pipe, stretched himself and coming nearer, dropped a big hand onto the boy’s shoulder.
“If I didn’t like you so much I wouldn’t tell you these things, Larry,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t know just how you felt, if I hadn’t felt that way myself when I started playing baseball. I don’t want you to make the mistakes I made, or suffer from them the way I did. You know that, don’t you?”
A long silence.
“If—if—if what you say is true,” said Larry hesitatingly, “what ought I do?”
“It is true, isn’t it?”