“It was less than a week before the Harvard-Princeton game at Princeton, 1911, a friend of mine wrote down and asked me to get him four good seats, and said if I’d mention my favorite cigar, he’d send me a box in appreciation.  I got the seats for him, but it was more or less of a struggle, but in writing on did not mention cigars.  He sent me a check to cover the cost of the tickets and in the letter enclosed a small scarf pin which he said was sure to bring me luck.  He had done quite a little running in his time and said it had never failed him and urged me to be sure and put it in my tie the day of the Harvard-Princeton game.  I am not superstitious, but I did stick it in my tie when I dressed that Saturday morning and it surely had a charm.  It was in the first half that I got away for my run, and as we came out of the field house at the start of the second half, whom should I see but my friend, yelling like a madman—­

“‘Did you wear it?  Did you wear it?’

“I assured him I did, and it seemed to quiet and please him, for he merely grinned and replied: 

“‘I told you!  I told you!’

“After the game I said nothing of the episode, but did secretly decide to keep the pin safely locked up until the day of the Yale-Princeton game.  I again stuck it in my tie that morning and the charm still held, and I am still wondering to this day, if it doesn’t pay to be a little bit superstitious.”

Every Harvard man remembers vividly the great Crimson triumph of 1915 over Yale.  It will never be forgotten.  During the game I sat on the Harvard side lines with Doctor Billy Brooks, a former Harvard captain.  He was not satisfied when Harvard had Yale beaten by the score of 41 to 0, but was enthusiastically urging Harvard on to at least one or two more touchdowns, so that the defeat which Yale meted out to Harvard in 1884, a game in which he was a player, would be avenged by a larger score, but alas! he had to be satisfied with the tally as it stood.

A story is told of the enthusiasm of Evert Jansen Wendell, as he stood on the side lines of this same game and saw the big Crimson roller crushing Yale down to overwhelming defeat.  This enthusiastic Harvard graduate cried out: 

“‘We must score again!’

“Another Harvard sympathiser, standing nearby, said: 

“’Mr. Wendell, don’t you think we have beaten them badly enough?  What more do you want?’

“‘Oh, I want to see them suffer,’ retorted Wendell.”

After this game was over and the crowd was surging out of the stadium that afternoon I heard an energetic newsboy, who was selling the Harvard Lampoon, crying out at the top of his voice: 

“‘Harvard Lampoon for sale here.  All about the New Haven wreck.’”

Eddie Mahan