“Not a bit! And I wasn’t sarcastic. I really do mean that I’ll try to keep in mind that it is a big job and that it’s worth doing. And,” he added warmly, “I’m mighty glad you said it. It’s going to help. But there’s another way you can help, Rowland, if you will.”
“How is that?”
“Come out and try for the team tomorrow. Will you?”
Ira hesitated. “I’d like awfully much to oblige you, Lyons, but I don’t want to do it. I’m quite certain that I’d never be any good at football. I guess it takes some quality I haven’t got. I don’t believe a fellow ever makes much of a success at a thing he hasn’t any—any inclination for. If you don’t mind, Lyons, I’d much prefer not to.”
“If it’s only not liking the game,” said Lyons, “you can take my word for it that you will like it after you get to know it better, and——”
“It isn’t that altogether. I’m not a very brilliant fellow at studying, and, of course I did come here to learn. I don’t expect to go to college and so I want to make the most of this school. And I’m afraid that playing football would raise hob with studying. It does, doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily,” answered White. “Fred manages to keep his end up without trouble, and so do a lot of others.”
“Don’t lie to him,” said Lyons. “Football does play hob with your studies, Rowland. The only thing is that it lasts but a short while and it leaves you in mighty good shape to buckle down and get caught up. But it’s piffle to say that the two things mix well. They don’t. I’ve always managed to keep up fairly well in my classes, but how it will be this year I don’t know. Luckily, I’ve got a fairly easy term ahead of me. You do just as you think best about trying for the team, old man. We’d like mighty well to have you, and I think you’d make good, but if you think you’d better not, why, that’s your affair. Only, if you change your mind in the next fortnight and see your way to giving us a chance to use you, come on out. We need men—I mean likely ones: we’ve got a raft of the other sort—and we can find a place for you somewhere or I miss my guess.”
“Seems to me,” observed Ray White, “Rowland is rather losing sight of the question of duty.”
“I don’t think so,” answered Ira, before Gene could interpose. “Seems to me my duty is toward my dad, who is paying for my schooling. After that to myself. Then to the school.”