"And now, do a more difficult thing. Get right hold of yourself. Put everything out of your mind; go to bed and sleep."
This last injunction, though he tried his best to obey it, was beyond Stover's power. He passed the night in fitful flashes of sleep. At times he awoke, full of a fever of eagerness from a dream of success. Then he would lie staring, it seemed for hours, at the thin path across the ceiling made by a street lamp, feeling all at once a weakness in the pit of his stomach, a physical horror of what the day would bring forth. The words of the coach framed themselves in a sort of rhythmic chant which went endlessly knocking through his brain:
"Catch every punt--get off every kick--make every tackle."
In the morning it was the same refrain, which never left him. He rose tired, with a limpness in every muscle, his head heavy as if bound across with biting bonds. He stood stupidly holding his wash-pitcher, looking out of the window, saying:
"Good heavens! it's only a few hours off now."
Breakfast passed like a nightmare. He put something tasteless into his mouth, his jaws moved, but that was all. The brisk walk to chapel restored him somewhat, and the consciousness of holding himself before the gaze of the crowd. After first recitation, Regan joined him, and together they went across the campus, no longer the campus of the University, but beginning to swarm with strangers, and strange colors amid the blue.
"How are you feeling?" said Regan in a fatherly sort of way, as they went through Phelps and out on to the Common.
"Tom, my shoes stick to the ground, my knees are made of paper, and I'm hollow from one end to the other."
"You'll be a bundle of fire on the field."
"Let's not walk too far. We want to keep fresh," said Stover, feeling indeed as though every step was draining his energy.
"Rats! let's saunter down Chapel Street and see the crowds come in."
"You old rhinoceros, have you any nerves?"
"Lots, but they're a different sort. By George, isn't it a wonderful sight?"
Side by side with Regan, a certain shame steadied Stover. They went silently through the surging, arriving multitude, all intoxicated with the joy and zest of the great game. In and out, newsboys howling papers with headlines and pictures of the team thrust their wares before their eyes, while a pestiferous swarm of strange pedlers shrieked: