"Captain at Lawrenceville."
"He ought to be a wonder."
"Say, did you see the face he got on him?"
"Enough to scare you to death."
"It got Fisher, all right."
While he was being rubbed down and having his clothes thrust upon him, shivering in every tense muscle, which, now the issue was decided, seemed to have broken from his control, suddenly a hand gripped his, and, looking up, he saw the face of Tompkins, ablaze with the fire of the professional spectator.
"I'm not shaking hands on your brutal old tackling," he said, with a look that belied his words. "It's the other thing—the losing the first fall. Good brain-work, boy; that's what'll count in football."
The grip of the veteran cut into his hand; in Tompkins's face also was a reminiscent flash of the fighting face that somehow, in any test, wins half the battle.
The third bout went to the sophomores, Regan, the choice of the class, being nowhere to be found. But the victory was with the freshmen, who, knit suddenly together by the consciousness of a power to rise to emergencies, carried home the candidates in triumph.
McCarthy, with his arms around Stover as he had done in the old school days after a grueling football contest, bore Dink up to their rooms with joyful, bearlike hugs. Other hands were on him, wafting him up the stairs as though riding a gale.