“You—you are on the Team now?” asked the other eagerly.
Jonesie shook his head regretfully. “No, I never got into football after that. Doctor’s orders. Perhaps next year—I’m so much better——” He sighed and then smiled brightly, bravely. “Well, it doesn’t matter, I guess.”
“Oh, but if you’re really fond of the game,” exclaimed the other boy feelingly, “it must be—be an awful disappointment! I—I’m sorry!”
“Thanks. Yes, of course it is a disappointment, but”—Jonesie shrugged his shoulders—“life is full of disappointments and one soon learns to—er—accept them philosophically. Now take your case—er—— You didn’t tell me your name, did you?”
“No. It’s Wigman.”
“Mine’s Jones, D. W. Jones. Well, as I was saying, Wigman, take your case. You may have to—to accept disappointment, too. You see, there’ll be piles of fellows trying for the Team, and some of them may show up as well as you will, although I will say”—and here Jonesie turned to scrutinize Wigman carefully and approvingly—“that from your looks you ought to have the making of a dandy player.” Wigman flushed under the compliment. “But there you are! Merit isn’t everything. You might play as well as another chap and yet he’d get the call just because he had—er—friends to speak for him. Do you see?”
“But—but that’s hardly fair, is it?” asked Wigman. “I thought Randall’s was a school where you—where every fellow had the same chance as every other fellow. I—I’ve heard so.”
“Sure! That’s so, to a certain extent. Still, you know yourself, Wigman, that if you were captain of the Team—as you will be some day, or I miss my guess!—you couldn’t help favoring the fellow you knew, supposing he played as well as the other fellow, whom you didn’t know. It’s human nature, isn’t it?”
Wigman allowed that it was.
“Of course! There you are, then! So what you want to do is to make friends, Wigman; get acquainted right away and, if you can do it, find a fellow who’s close to Bing.”