"I do hope he hasn't lost any of his front teeth. His mouth was bleeding the last time he fell," continues his mother.
"False ones nowadays are very satisfactory," I answer,
Ten minutes later we are moving along with the rest of our acquaintance on the way to the railroad. Yale has won, eleven to four, and the bruised and battered players of both teams have departed on their respective tally-hos, and Josephine and I are free to receive the congratulations of our friends with a calm mind, though my darling is still haunted by the fear that our illustrious son has left a tooth or two on the arena. Fred's run is on everybody's lips, and we as the authors of his being are made much of. Mr. Leggatt, the banker, works his way up to me through the crowd at great personal distress, for he is a fat man, in order to say, with an enthusiastic shake of the hand:
"Great boy that of yours; splendid grit; I must have him when he graduates."
I sputter many thanks confusedly. Here is a strange development truly. I had been hoping, as you may remember, to be able to go to Mr. Leggatt, at Fred's graduation, and to ask for a clerkship for my boy on the plea of his steadiness and sterling common sense; and now the solicitation has come to me on the score of his grit as a foot-ball kicker. The world seems just a little topsy-turvy, and I am not quite sure whether to laugh or to cry.
We got home at last somehow; and here I am sitting in my library trying to collect my faculties and to appreciate the honor which has been thrust upon me—the honor of being the father of a famous half-back. To tell the truth, it sticks in my crop just a little and does not relish to the extent which would seem appropriate. Indeed I am not altogether sure whether I can see a distinction between being the father of a famous half-back and the father of a famous toreador or famous prize-fighter. I know that Leggatt and one or two others, to whom I ventured to expose my qualms on the way home, declared them preposterous, and that the game was magnificent discipline for both mind and body. Come to that, the vicissitudes of a matador are magnificent discipline for both mind and body. So are those of a gladiator. Yet I have my doubts whether Leggatt would like to be the father of either. Nevertheless, although he is a citizen of far greater consideration than I, he gave me to understand that he would be proud to be described in the newspapers as the father of a famous half-back, and to see a son of his handed down to posterity in the public prints as a prize animal of this description.
I fear there must be a screw loose somewhere in my make-up as a father and a philosopher. You remember the case of the burglars? It did not seem to me worth while to go downstairs and expose myself to be shot. Yet Josephine felt differently on the point.
Moreover, I have never been able to understand why it is courageous or meritorious to be an amateur Alpine climber, whereas many are fain to admire the beauties of nature from an elevation where a false step or a rotten rope would be passports to destruction. Then, again, people who cross the ocean in dories, or fast for indefinite periods, have never aroused my enthusiasm. On the contrary, I regard them as being in the same general category with lunatics. I have never seen a bull-fight, and I have sometimes fancied that I should be weak enough to attend one out of curiosity if I happened to be in Spain at the right time; but I am sure that I should never care to go twice. And yet I am expected to feel proud and grateful because my eldest son has made prowess at foot-ball the aim and object of his college course. I am trying to, trying hard, but I fear it is no use. I should like to understand why it is glorious or sensible for an honest, strapping fellow, who has been sent to college by dint of some economy on the part of his parents, to devote his entire energies to a course of training which will entitle him to run the risk of having his legs, arms, or ribs broken in fighting for a leather ball before several thousand people. Of one thing I am certain already, even at the risk of seeming to agree with Horace Plympton, which is, that if I had another son with like proclivities, I should put a stop to it.
But then, as Josephine reminds me, the fact that our David does not care a picayune for anything of the sort, robs my resolve of much of its solemnity. I might, to be sure, interpose a mandate at this late hour and cut off little Fred in the flower of his renown, and (to quote my wife once more) break his heart; which might be a more serious consequence than a broken leg. No, I am inclined to think, on the whole, now that the mischief is done, we may as well let him follow the path he has chosen, especially as Leggatt has his eye on him and has promised to give him a start. We must live in the hope that the breath will not be trampled out of him once too often before that desirable result is brought to pass. Moreover, if he is borne of the field on a litter, it will not be in the presence of his parents. We have seen one gladiatorial combat, and our thirst for gore is sated.
Henceforth we shall be content to cower by the hearth on the days when the great matches are played and fancy each ring at the door-bell the summons of a telegraphic emissary. And by way of celebrating our first escape from bereavement, I am going to present our David with a gold watch for the excellent showing he made in his studies last summer.