“Well, why can’t you and those other beggars let me alone?” asked Cameron. “I’ve never interfered with you chaps.”
“I don’t think there’s one of us who doesn’t like you, Cameron,” answered Hansel after a moment. “And if we’re down on you it isn’t for what you are, but for what you represent.”
“Represent?” repeated Billy with a puzzled laugh. “[Gee! I didn’t know I represented anything.] What is it?”
[“‘Gee! I didn’t know I represented anything!’”]
“What I mean is this: we haven’t any right to play a fellow on our football team or our baseball team who is here just for football or baseball, who is having his way through school paid by the fellows. If we once countenance that sort of thing, Cameron, it’s going to lead us a long way off the right track. If it’s fair in your case, why not in other cases? What’s to keep us from hiring a whole team of good football players?”
“Couldn’t afford it,” answered Billy practically.
“Not this year, but there’s no telling what might be done in that way. For my part, I’m sorry I’ve had to—to worry you, but unfortunately, Cameron, you’ve placed yourself in a wrong position.”
“Now, look here,” said the other mildly. “You say I’m here just to play football. That isn’t so, Dana. I may not be very smart at lessons, and my folks haven’t any money, but I’m not a mucker. I got fired out of the other school because I couldn’t keep up, but why couldn’t I? Because the fellows I knew didn’t study, and because the faculty was down on me from the start. Then some fellows here wrote and asked me to come here; said I wouldn’t have to worry about expenses. Well, I came. I wanted to get ready for college somehow, and this seemed a good chance. They gave me a place in dining hall that supplied my meals, and they paid my tuition. What’s the difference whether they paid it or some one else? I know two or three fellows here who are having their tuition paid by friends, and not by their own folks. But they don’t play football, and so there’s no kick. Last year, if I didn’t get honors, I was pretty well up in my class, and this year I’m trying for a scholarship. If I get it, and Farrel says I’ll stand a good show, the fellows can keep their old money; I’d a heap rather pay my own way, you bet!”