Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/233

 before. I can't do everything at the last minute. No matter, I'll give you till Greenway shows up. He's only a sub-end anyway, and we're lousy with ends. What did you flunk?"

"I didn't flunk anything," Neale admitted, half-ashamed that he might be considered a grind.

Grant jumped up. "What, nothing! And on the football squad, too." He stared hard at Neale as at a strange animal, and conjectured aloud, "Well, you must be a dub, of course. Never knew a Varsity man whose brain-cavity wasn't stuffed with cabbage-leaves."

Neale apparently showed some of the alarm this caused him, for the upper-classman added, "Oh, you'll get your chance just the same. Judging by the number of boobs Alpine and I are coaching, any dub who is eligible will have a smell at the Varsity, at least for the early games, till we can shove the regular Varsity men through their conditions."

"," roared a voice from the lower hallway.

Neale tossed his derby on one of the unpreëmpted cots and ran downstairs. As he bounded down flight after flight he could hear Grant leaning over the top banister yelling to the Manager to have Greenway found and delivered to him at once.

It was great to breathe the sweaty air of the dressing-room again, to strip and pull on your rough jersey and feel it rubbing the skin of your shoulders, great to hail the men you knew and have them slap you on the back.

".… On the jump!" The squad clattered out, their cleats scraping and slipping on the marble steps.

Practice that afternoon was what the coaches called light—that is, no bones were broken: they fell on the ball, and it gladdened Neale's heart to see the new men hop into the air and bang down on one hip, just as he used to last season. They tackled the dummy, they went down under punts that sultry September afternoon—all of them, even the line men, time after time, till the sweat soaked even through their elbow-pads. Neale was dog-tired as he hobbled back to the