"Why, he's dead easy! I'll say, 'Aw, let's get out of here, this beer is rotten.' 'All right,' he'll say, 'let's wander over to the room.' Minute we get there he proposes that we pole the Greek or something. See his idea? He thinks he'll sour me on being quiet, but, ha, ha! I fool him every time—how? Why I just sit down and pole to beat the band until too late for him to join the gang. See? Oh, but he's easy! I have made up my mind to keep that boy from making a fool of himself, and when I make up my mind to a thing, I don't believe in crawling. Besides, poling won't hurt me any."
"Oh, no, Thompson," said Lawrence sympathetically. "I don't see how it can hurt you."
Darnell came in a little later and sat down in the very same chair and had this to say: "Lawrence, Gus Thompson is a queer fellow. You know he doesn't go with the crowd any more, and because he is sour and doesn't care to have any good times, he tries to interfere with my enjoyment too. He's always proposing that we stay in the rooms—you know we room together now. I thought I could look after him better in that way— Well, when he kicks on poling I start to join the gang, and then he says 'All right, let's pole.' He must be jealous about me. But that's the way I work him. He's so easy."
"Yes," said Lawrence, "lots of people are."
THE SCRUB QUARTER-BACK
Tommy Wormsey was a meek little boy with an ugly face, mostly covered with court-plaster, and he would rather fall on a football than eat.
When he came trotting out upon the field, the college along the side lines always smiled at the way he tipped his head to one side with his eyes on the ground, as though he was ashamed of himself and of his funny little bumpy body, stuck into a torn suit and stockings which weren't mates and had holes in them. When he skimmed over the ground and dived through the air and brought down a two-hundred-and-something-pound guard, with his knotty little arms barely reaching about the big thighs, it looked very absurd, and when he jumped up again, yelling "3—9—64" in his shrill earnest voice, and ran sniffling back to his place, with his sorrowful face seeming to say, "I know I oughtn't to have let him slide so far, but please don't scold me this time," the crowd laughed uproariously, which hurt his feelings.
But he paid very little attention to anything except the scrub captain's orders and the admonitions of the coachers, to whom he said, "Yes, sir," and "I'll try it that way, sir." He was afraid of them, and looked down at his torn stockings when they spoke to him. Those of the crowd along the ropes who knew everything, as well as the other spectators who only knew a few things, said that Freshman Wormsey had more sand and football instinct than any man on the field. But they did not know what a coward he was at heart.
More than once when a 'varsity guard had broken through and jumped on him, and the scrub halves had fallen on him from the other direction to keep him from being shoved back, and the other 'varsity guard and the centre, who were not light, had thrown themselves upon these, and one of the ends had swung round and jumped on the top of the pile on general principles, Wormsey, at the bottom, said "ouch!" under his breath, if he had any. He weighed 137 pounds stripped.
At night, after the trick practice with checkers at the Athletic Club, he always hurried back to his room, and stacked the pillows and sofa cushions up in the corner of the room, with the black one in the centre, and taking his place on one knee in the opposite corner, socked the ball into the pile. Every time he missed the black one in the centre he called himself names.