“Should be Jimpson,” corrected the man next to him; and a low voice called from the far end of the barge:
“Here, sir.” It sounded so much like the response of a schoolboy to the teacher that the hearers laughed with the mirth begot of tight-stretched nerves. A youth wearing a faded brown ulster, who was between Gates, the big center, and the corner of the coach, grew painfully red in the face, and went into retirement behind the big man’s shoulder.
“Who is this fellow Jimpson?” queried a man in a yellow mackintosh.
“Jimpson? He’s a freshie. Trying for right half-back all fall. I suppose Brattle took him along, now that Ward’s given up, to substitute Sills. They say he’s an A 1 runner, and plucky. He’s played some on the second eleven. Taunton told me, the other day, that he played great ball at Exeter, last year.”
The strident strains of the Washington Post burst out on the air, urging the cheerers to even greater efforts. They were cheering indiscriminately now. Trainer, rubbers, and coaches had received their shares of the ovation. But Benham, ’95, with his coat soaked through, was still unsatisfied, and sought for further tests. Two professors, half hidden under umbrellas, had emerged from the yard, and were standing at a little distance, watching the scene.
“Three times three for Professor Dablee!” The cheers that followed were mixed with laughter, and the two professors moved off, but not until the identity of the second had been revealed, and the air had filled with the refrain of “’Rah, ’rah, ’rah! Pollock!”
“They look as though they ought to win; don’t you think so?” asked one of them.
The other professor frowned.
“Yes, they look like that; every eleven does. You’d think, to see them before a game, that nothing short of a pile-driver or dynamite could drive them an inch. And a few days later they return, heartbroken and defeated.”