Lefty, who had been beaming over with exultation and self-satisfaction, now stood motionless, his eyes glued upon the score board and his face bearing a miserable, abject look of stupidity and failure.
Up in the stands, a rancorous Yale freshman seemed to take unusual delight in the misery that had befallen Lefty’s mother and father and the tears that filled the old lady’s eyes.
“It’s Okay, pop,” he shouted, “Harvard is going to give your son a nice big ‘H’ for his grand play!”
Phelps, senior, did not venture to reply. His heart was breaking within him. Slowly he lifted his arm and gently placed it around the slim shoulders of his wife, managing to choke back the lump in his throat and say, “Let’s go to him, Mother, I guess he needs us!” Maintaining their wounded dignity, this fine old couple made their way from the stands, passed the Yale men and their girls who boisterously flung taunts at them.
In the box that had been occupied by the Marines, Panama sat in convulsions of laughter, chiding his two buddies, hilarious over their apparent discomfort.
“Say, that guy Phelps must be a Harvard man in disguise,” Panama roared, literally doubled in two.
“Go on and laugh, you big punk,” retorted one of the other sergeants. “Have a good time, but remember, I bet ten bucks on Yale and five of it was yours!”
As Phelps and his team mates made their way to the Yale Dugout, a battalion of reporters and cameramen followed closely upon their heels, striving to get photographs of the disgraced player.
“Come on, take the air,” the Yale coach warned the news photographers, as he kicked over one of their tripods; then addressing Lefty, spoke kindly: “Forget it, kid; we’ll beat ’em next year, sure!”
The coach’s generosity only tended to heighten Lefty’s misery. He ran and buried his head on his waiting mother’s shoulder, the shoulder that had always been a haven of comfort to him in the past.