“You must have hated to do it,” he said admiringly.

Chase nodded.  “I did.  But I argued it like this.  Dad was paying a lot of good money for my education, and he hasn’t very much of it, either, and if he didn’t want to risk the investment I hadn’t any right to ask him to.  Because, of course, if I went and busted myself up I’d be more or less of a dead loss.  Any amount of education doesn’t cut much figure if you can’t make use of it.”

“N-no, but—­fellows don’t get really hurt very often,” replied Clint.

“Not often, but there was no way of proving to dad’s satisfaction that I mightn’t, you see.  And then, once when we went to a Summer resort down in Maine there was a chap there, a great, big six-footer of a fellow, who used to be wheeled around on a reclining chair.  He’d got his in football.  And that rather scared me, I guess.  Not so much on my account as on dad’s.  I knew he’d be pretty well disappointed if he paid for my school and college courses and in return got only an invalid in a wheel-chair.”

“So, very wisely,” said Amy, “you dropped football and took up a gentleman’s game?”

“Well, I’d always liked tennis,” conceded Chase.  “Funny thing, though, that, after all, I got hurt worse in tennis than I did in four years of football.”  Clint looked curious and Chase went on.  “I was playing in a doubles tournament at home Summer before last and my partner and I hadn’t worked together before and there was a high one to the back of the court and we both made for it.  I got the ball and he got me; on the back of the head with his full force.  I dropped and they had me in bed three weeks.  Concussion, they called it.  I thought so too.”

Clint glanced reflectively at his knee.  “I reckon a fellow does take chances in football,” he murmured.  “I’d hate to give it up, though.”

“I have an uncle,” said Chase, “who used to play football a long time ago, when he was in college.  In those days about everything went, I guess.  He told me once that he used to be scared to death every time he started in a hard game for fear he’d get badly injured.  Said it wasn’t until someone had jabbed him in the nose or ‘chinned’ him that he forgot to be scared.”

“I know the feeling,” observed Amy.  “Once when I was playing a chap jumped on me when I was down and dug his knee into my chest till I thought he’d caved me in.  I was so mad I tried to bite his ankle!”

“He had a narrow escape from hydrophobia, didn’t he?” mused Clint.

The first two periods of the Chambers game aroused little interest.  Both teams played listlessly, much, as Amy put it, as if they were waiting for the noon whistle.  There was a good deal of punting and both sides handled the ball cleanly.  Neither team was able to make consistent gains at rushing and the two periods passed without an exciting incident.  Amy was frankly bored and offered to play Chase a couple of sets of tennis.  Chase, however, chose to see the game through.