“I’ll match you to see whether I take your place and get your tickets or whether you keep your place and get mine,” he said.
They matched and Phillip won. Guy took his place with a sigh.
“If I don’t show up by to-morrow night,” he said, “write to my folks and tell them I perished nobly in performance of my duty. How long have you been circulating around this picturesque and well-ventilated salon?”
“About an hour and a quarter,” answered Phillip. “Seems to me it’s a mighty poor arrangement. Why can’t they give out the tickets at the Union or somewhere? I’ve heard lots of fellows kicking about it.”
“Really?” asked Guy. “And—speak lower!—did you by any possibility overhear any one suggest writing to the Crimson about it? Don’t be afraid to answer; I’m discretion itself.”
“Why, yes, I heard several. Why?”
“Thank Heaven!” said Guy fervently. “The old spirit that refuses to endure unjust oppression is still with us. Just so long as we have the courage to write to the Crimson protesting against the ‘present unsatisfactory method of distributing the Yale game tickets’ the cause of liberty is not lost! Varian—he’s an editor or an office boy or a printer’s devil or something on the Crimson—told me yesterday that they’re going to issue a special sixteen-page paper this year to accommodate the letters from indignant subscribers. I’m going to write myself; I promised him I would. And you ought to, too. It’s your duty. Think it over. And, by the way, if you care about getting these tickets, you’d better call at my room this afternoon about four. So long.”
When Phillip got the tickets he was inclined to follow Guy’s advice and “register a kick.” There were six of them, two of his own, two for Kingsford and two for a fellow named Muir, and they were half-way up the South Stand and just back of the ten-yard line. But Kingsford said it didn’t matter; that he wasn’t going to watch a lot of sluggers wrestle about in the mud; that he had other things to do during the game.
“Oh!” said Phillip. “Well, that’s well enough for you; you’ve got your friend. But how about me?”
“Why, you ingrate! Haven’t I agreed to put you between the mater and my sister? The mater will tell you all about the strange ailments that visited me when I was a babe in arms, and how from the very earliest moment I gave indications of the intellect that is now making me famous. And Betty will recite Thoreau or Emerson to you dreamily, and ask you whether you think you’re what you could have been had you been other than what you are—or words to that effect.”