Harry's easy flow of talk stopped short, and a new feeling filled his mind. "Good Heavens, James cares, actually cares about the confounded thing," he thought, and dropped his brother's hand.
CHAPTER X
RUMBLINGS
"Please, sir, could you give me any dope for the News about your coming back to coach the football team?" asked a timid voice from the doorway.
"No, heeler, no; I've already said I wouldn't give anything about that till I made up my mind, and I haven't yet." Thus James, more petulantly than was his wont, from his chair below the green-shaded lamp. The heeler, obviously a freshman, blinked disappointedly through the half-gloom for a few seconds and then moved to go.
"Wait a bit," said James, his good-humor restored; "I'm sorry, heeler. But when I tell you that you're the thirteenth person that has come in at that door since seven o'clock, and that I've got a hundred pages of economics to read for to-morrow, perhaps you'll understand why I'm a little snappy about being interrupted."
"That's all right," murmured the heeler vaguely. He was used to being snapped at by prominent seniors, but he was not used to being apologized to by them, and was not sure how he liked it.
"I tell you what I'll do, though," went on James. "I'll give you a locker notice that ought to have been put in long ago. Here." He reached for the heeler's notebook and wrote in it: "All senior members of the football squad are requested to remove their clothes from their lockers as the space will be wanted for spring practice." "There, that'll put you fifty words to the good, anyway," he said brightly, and the heeler went his way in peace.
James had conducted himself most creditably during his college course, and in the course of a few months would graduate if not exactly in a blaze of glory, at least in a very comfortable radiance. His standard of values had been a simple but satisfactory one; first, Football; second, Curriculum; third, Other Things. Any number of the steadier and worthier portion of the college world make this their creed, and find it works out extremely well. In the case of James, at least, such a standard gave a sane and well-balanced view of life. He took football with the most deathly seriousness, it is true, but only in its season, and its season, owing to the rigors of the New England climate, lasts hardly more than two months out of the twelve. During that time James practically hibernated when not actually on the football field, lived mainly on boiled rice and barley water, indulged in no amusements or vices, went about thoughtful and preoccupied, scarcely spoke even to his most intimate friends, studied only just enough to keep his stand above the danger mark and slept, as Harry rather vividly put it, "anywhere from thirty to forty hours out of the twenty-four." Out of the football season he was cheerful, cordial, loved the society of his fellows, smoked, drank in moderation, went to the theater, played cards, ate every kind of food he could lay his hands on and studied with a very faithful and intelligent interest. His classmates admired him during the football season, and loved him the rest of the year. Generally speaking, he conformed closely to his type; but his type was one of the best the college evolved.