Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered humorous.  The stranger became grave.

“That all?” he inquired.

Bob’s self-disgust overpowered him.

“No,” said he, “not by a long shot.”  In brief sentences he told of his whole experience since entering the business world.  When he had finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.

“Well, what you going to do about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bob confessed.  “I’ve got to tell father I’m no good.  That is the only thing I can see ahead to now.  It will break him all up, and I don’t blame him.  Father is too good a man himself not to feel this sort of a thing.”

“I see,” said the stranger.  “Well, it may come out in the wash,” he concluded vaguely after a moment.  Bob stared out at the river, lost in the gloomy thoughts his last speech had evoked.  The stranger improved the opportunity to look the young man over critically from head to foot.

“I see you’re a college man,” said he, indicating Bob’s fraternity pin.

“Yes,” replied the young man listlessly.  “I went to the University.”

“That so!” said the stranger, “well, you’re ahead of me.  I never got even to graduate at the high school.”

“Am I?” said Bob.

“What did you do at college?” inquired the big man.

“Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.——­”

“I don’t mean what you learned.  What did you do?”

Bob reflected.

“I don’t believe I did a single earthly thing except play a little football,” he confessed.

“Oh, you played football, did you?  That’s a great game!  I’d rather see a good game of football than a snake fight.  Make the ’varsity?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you play?”

“Halfback.”

“Pretty heavy for a ‘half,’ ain’t you?”

“Well—­I train down a little—­and I managed to get around.”

“Play all four years?”

“Yes.”

“Like it?”

Bob’s eye lit up.  “Yes!” he cried.  Then his face fell.  “Too much, I guess,” he added sadly.

For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger’s eye found vocal expression.  He chuckled.  It was a good, jolly, subterranean chuckle from deep in his throat, and it shook all his round body to its foundations.

“Who bossed you?” he asked, “—­your captain, I mean.  What sort of a fellow was he?  Did you get along with him all right?”

“Had to,” Bob grinned wryly; “you see they happened to make me captain.”

“Oh, they happened to, did they?  What is your name?”

“Orde.”

The stranger gurgled again.

“You’re just out then.  You must have captained those big scoring teams.”

“They were good teams.  I was lucky,” said Bob.

“Didn’t I see by the papers that you went back to coach last fall?”