"What's your name?" the bored youth asked all at once.
"Morton. George Morton."
"I'm Godfrey Rogers. Lawrenceville. What prep are you?"
"What what?"
"I mean, what school you come from?"
George experienced a sharp discomfort, facing the first of his unforeseen embarrassments. Evidently his simple will to crush the past wouldn't be sufficient.
"I went to a public school off and on," he muttered.
Rogers' eyes widened. George had a feeling that the boy had receded. It wasn't until later, when he had learned the customs of the place, that he could give that alteration its logical value. It made no difference. He had a guide. Straightway he would find a man who could help him get in; but he noticed that Rogers abandoned personalities, chatting only of the difficulties of entrance papers, and the apparent mad desire of certain professors to keep good men from matriculating.
They came to a small frame house on Dickinson Street. Rogers left George in the hall while he entered the study. The door did not quite close, and phrases slipped out in Rogers' glib voice, and, more frequently, in a shrill, querulous one.
"Don't know a thing about him. Just met him on the street looking for a coach. No prep."
"Haven't the time. I've enough blockheads as it is. He'd better go to Corse's school."
"You won't see him?"
"Oh, send him in," George heard Bailly say irritably. "You, Rogers, would sacrifice me or the entire universe to spare your brain five minutes' useful work. I'll find out what he knows, and pack him off to Corse. Wait in the hall."
Rogers came out, shaking his head.
"Guess there's nothing doing, but he'll pump you."
George entered and closed the door. Behind a table desk lounged a long, painfully thin figure. The head was nearly bald, but the face carried a luxuriant, carelessly trimmed Van Dyke beard. Above it cheeks and forehead were intricately wrinkled, and the tweed suit, apparently, strove to put itself in harmony. It was difficult to guess how old Squibs Bailly was; probably very ancient, yet in his eyes George caught a flashing spirit of youth.
The room was forcefully out of key with its occupant. The desk, extremely neat with papers, blotters, and pens, was arranged according to a careful pattern. On books and shelves no speck of dust showed, and so far the place was scholarly. Then George was a trifle surprised to notice, next to a sepia print of the Parthenon, a photograph of a football team. That, moreover, was the arrangement around the four walls – classic ruins flanked by modern athletes. On a table in the window, occupying what one might call the position of honour, stood a large framed likeness of a young man in football togs.
Before George had really closed the door the high voice had opened its attack.
"I haven't any more time for dunces."
"I'm not a dunce," George said, trying to hold his temper.
Bailly didn't go on right away. The youthful glance absorbed each detail of George's face and build.
"Anyhow," he said after a moment, less querulously, "let's see what you lack of the infantile requirements needful for entrance in an American university."
He probed George's rapid acquaintance with mathematics, history, English, and the classics. With modern languages there was none. Then the verdict came. Two years' work.
"I've got to make my eyes and brain do," George said. "I've got to enter college this fall or never. I tell you, Mr. Bailly, I am going to do it. I know you can help me, if you will. I'll pay."
Bailly shook his head.
"Even if I had the time my charges are high."
George showed his whole hand.
"I have about five hundred dollars."
"For this condensed acquisition of a kindergarten knowledge, or – or – "
"For everything. But only let me get in and I'll work my way through."
Again Bailly shook his head.
"You can't get in this fall, and it's not so simple to work your way through."
"Then," George said, "you refuse to do anything for me?"
The youthful eyes squinted. George had an odd impression that they sought beyond his body to learn just what manner of man he was. The querulous voice possessed more life.
"How tall are you?"
"A little over six feet."
"What's your weight?"
George hesitated, unable to see how such questions could affect his entering college. He decided it was better to answer.
"A hundred and eighty-five."
"Good build!" Bailly mused. "Wish I'd had a build like that. If your mind is as well proportioned – Take your coat off. Roll up your sleeves."
"What for?" George asked.
Bailly arose and circled the desk. George saw that the skeleton man limped.
"Because I'd like to see if the atrophying of your brain has furnished any compensations."
George grinned. The portrait in the window seemed friendly. He obeyed.
Bailly ran his hand over George's muscles. His young eyes widened.
"Ever play football?"
George shook his head doubtfully.
"Not what you would call really playing. Why? Would football help?"
"Provided one's the right stuff otherwise, would being a god help one climb Olympus?" Bailly wanted to know.
He indicated the framed likeness in the window.
"That's Bill Gregory."
"Seems to me I've seen his name in the papers," George said.
Bailly stared.
"Without doubt, if you read the public prints at all. He exerted much useful cunning and strength in the Harvard and Yale games last fall. He was on everybody's All-American eleven. I got him into college and man-handled him through. Hence this scanty hair, these premature furrows; for although he had plenty of good common-sense, and was one of the finest boys I've ever known, he didn't possess, speaking relatively, when it came to iron-bound text-books, the brains of a dinosaur; but he had the brute force of one."
"Why did you do it?" George asked. "Because he was rich?"
"Young man," Bailly answered, "I am a product of this seat of learning. With all its faults – and you may learn their number for yourself some day – its success is pleasing to me, particularly at football. I am very fond of football, perhaps because it approximates in our puling, modern fashion, the classic public games of ruddier days. In other words, I was actuated by a formless emotion called Princeton spirit. Don't ask me what that is. I don't know. One receives it according to one's concept. But when I saw in Bill something finer and more determined than most men possess, I made up my mind Princeton was going to be proud of him, on the campus, on the football field, and afterward out in the world."
The hollow, wrinkled face flushed.
"When Bill made a run I could think of it as my run. When he made a touchdown I could say, 'there's one score that wouldn't have been made if I hadn't booted Bill into college, and kept him from flunking out by sheer brute mentality!' Pardon me, Mr. Morton. I love the silly game."
George smiled, sensing his way, if only he could make this fellow feel he would be the right kind of Princeton man!
"I was going to say," he offered, "that while I had never had a chance to play on a regular team I used to mix it up at school, but I was stronger than most of the boys. There were one or two accidents. They thought I'd better quit."
Bailly laughed.
"That's the kind of material we want. You do look as if you could bruise a blue or a crimson jersey. Know where the field house