"You never looked at your back to see if he fumbled, did you?"
"And if he had, where'd you have been? If he holds it all right, knock over your end, but if he fumbles you've got to beat every one to it and recover it. You're one of eleven men, not a newspaper phenomenon--get that in your head. You didn't know I was trying you out as well as Bangs. Now let it sink into you. Do you get it?"
"Yes, sir, thank you," said Stover, furious at himself, for if there was one thing that was instinctive in him it was this cardinal quality of following the ball and being in every play.
It was a day of the hardest, trying alike to the nerves of coaches and men, when the teams were driven without a rest, when tempers were strained to the snapping point, in the effort to instil not so much the details of the game as the inflaming spirit of combat.
It was dusk before the coaches called a halt to the practise and sent them, steaming and panting, aching in every joint, back to the gymnasium for a rub-down.
Climbing wearily into the car to sink gratefully into a seat, Dink suddenly, to his confusion, found himself by the side of Bangs.
"Hello," said the senior, looking up with a grin, "I hope every muscle in your body's aching."
"It certainly is," said Stover, relieved.
Bangs looked at him a long moment, shook his head, and said:
"I wish I could drop a ton of brick on you."
"I've plugged away for years, slaved like a nigger at this criminal game, thought I was going to get my chance at last, and now you come along."
"Oh, I say," said Stover in real confusion.
"Oh, I'll make you fight for it," said the other, with a snap of his jaws. "But, boy, there's one thing I liked. When that old rhinoceros of a Harden was putting the hooks into me, you never eased up for a second."
"If you'd done differently I'd slaughtered you," said Bangs. "Well, good luck to you!"
He smiled, but back of the smile Stover saw the cruel cut of disappointment.
And this feeling was stronger in him than any feeling of elation as he returned to his rooms, after the late supper. He had never known anything like the fierceness of that first practise. It was not play with the zest he loved, it was a struggle of ambitions with all the heartache that lay underneath. He had gone out to play, and suddenly found himself in a school for character, enchained to the discipline of the Cæsars, where the test lay in stoicism and the victory was built on the broken hopes of a comrade.