"I've heard of Stover; end, wasn't he?"
"Yes; and the team's going to need ends badly."
It was the first time he had heard his name published abroad. He sat erect, drawing up one knee and locking his hands over it in a strained clasp. Suddenly the swimming vista of the smoky cars disappeared, rolling up into the tense, crowded, banked arena, with white splotches of human faces, climbing like daisy fields that moved restlessly, nervously stirred by the same expectant tensity with which he stood on the open field waiting for his chance to come.
"I like a fight—a good fight," he said to himself, drawing in his breath; and the wish seemed but a simple one, the call for the joyful shock of bodies in fair combat. And life was nothing else—a battle in the open where courage and a thinking mind must win.
"I'll bet we get a lot of fruits," said Schley's rather calculating voice.
"Oh, some of them aren't half bad."
"Think so?"
"I say, what do you know about this society game?"
"Look out."
"What's matter?"