At Start and Finish

by William Lindsey

Bah! Thirty years have not reconciled me to this gentry, with the addled brains and brazen throats.

Most of the college men are gathered in little groups, around which the crowds ebb and flow in a surging tide. That its strongest current is through the swinging door of the bar-room cannot be denied, nor that it shows signs of the source from which it sprang. There are at least three grains of talk to one of listen, which is the regular dose, though the athletes pull the proportion down. They are, as usual, quietest of all. They have developed other muscles than those of the tongue; and yet even they are a bit talkative to-night, and have an unmistakably festive air about them.

After months of preparation and weeks of strict training, when rigid rules prohibit, and all the pleasant things of life seem labelled "Keep off the grass," there is a maddening pleasure in being free again,—free to taste that favorite dish, palatable but indigestible; free to inhale the fragrance of a good cigar; free to watch the hands of the clock swing into the small hours; free, as Harry Gardner expresses it, "to do as you darn please once more."

For those who have lost there is the necessity of drowning sorrow, and it is certainly the duty of a good winner to give his victory a fitting celebration. There is not as much difference in the two ceremonies as might be imagined.

Our team has broken training, and some of them are breaking it badly. There are the long summer months before them, with the leisure hours at seashore or mountains, and no more work until the cool winds of autumn begin to blow. Even those of the most regular habits are kicking over the traces, and some of the wilder spirits, that make a trainer's hair gray before its time, to whom the six months' restraint has been a galling yoke, are giving themselves very loose rein. I am sorry to say that this particular team has not a large percentage of either deacons or clergymen, though Jim Harding afterward took holy orders, became an honor to the cloth, and will some day be a bishop. I occasionally attend his church; and when I see his huge form at the desk, and hear his voice, powerful and earnest, as it echoes to the farthest corner, I wonder if he has forgotten the night when we looked for "Paddy's cousin, the copper," when "every one was a winner."

As I enter the hotel lobby, after dinner, on this evening of the games of 188-, I discover Jim standing near the street entrance with Harry Gardner, and a little knot of college friends and admirers. They are smoking like bad chimneys, and between puffs are giving a green reporter some most surprising bits of information, much to their own enjoyment and the delectation of their friends. The little reporter is taking copious notes, which will create a sensation in the morning, if the sporting editor does not discover them before they get into print. Jim is big and blond, and Harry slender and dark; the former has made a first in the "hammer-throw;" the latter, after winning his trial heat in the "hundred" with ease, got away badly in the finals, and had to content himself with adding a single point to our score.

Now, Jim and Harry are particular friends of mine; I shall never handle them again, and I want a last word or two of farewell. They have developed under my care from awkward boys to the finished athletes they are to-night. I have seen the firm, round muscles becoming more and more perfect; the heart and lungs grow equal to more and more severe tests, and the increasing courage and self-reliance (without which there can be no success on the cinder-path) which will help them through many a struggle with the world they are about to enter. It is one of the sad parts of a trainer's life that he must lose such friends.

I force my way through the crowd, getting numberless nods and greetings of a warmer nature, for I am a well-known man in such a gathering. I strike the strong current flowing to and from the bar; but a little patience, and a liberal use of the elbow, brings me to the boys at last. I give them each a hand, and we exchange a word or two of congratulation. Harry is, I see, a bit sore at his misfortune, for he had been picked as a sure winner. I give him a word of praise for his gallant effort to make up a three-yard loss at the start. There are many sprinters who would not have tried at all, let alone have pulled off the much-needed point. I tell Harding, with assumed resentment, that he has been sogering all the time, abusing my confidence by playing the sleeper, and that he has always been good for the extra ten feet.

At this Jim gives one of his basso profundo laughs, and in answer to my question as to what mischief he is plotting, replies that Harry and himself are waiting for Paddy, who has gone with Tom Furness for a little something "to kape the night out," and that they have promised the Irishman to help him look up his cousin "Dinny Sullivan, a copper."