Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/206

 anchoring there in Kip's Bay; and he could tell many of the harbor tugs and all the Sound steamers by their whistles. That was why he would not look up unless he heard a new voice come across the water. All this bored him exceedingly.

Hamilton J. Knox had been one of the great men of his day, which was a year or two ago, when in college. He was in the World now. Therefore he was not even a man, it seemed, but a boy learning things about the relative importance of the inhabitants of this planet which all American youths should learn, for those who do not usually live to regret it.

But the contrast in this boy's case was more dramatic, because he had been Hammie Knox, the wondrous half-back of the best foot-ball team in the Western Hemisphere, and had made the winning run of the final game before 20,000 excited people; and this was the greatest romantic glory given to man—at that time, which was shortly before the Spanish war. He had been fondled and fussed over by his friends, and pointed out and stared at by everyone