is necessary for you to know something concerning
the lads themselves.

Jack Dudley was in his seventeenth year. His father was a prosperous
merchant, who intended his only son for the legal profession. Jack was
bright and studious, and a leader in his class at the Orphion Academy;
and this leadership was not confined to his studies, for he was a fine
athlete and an ardent lover of outdoor sports. If you witnessed the game
between the eleven of the Orphion Academy and the Oakdale Football Club,
which decided the championship by a single point in favor of the former,
you were thrilled by the sight of the half-back, who, at a critical
point in the contest, burst through the group which thronged about him,
and, with a clear field in front, made a superb run of fifty yards,
never pausing until he stooped behind the goal-posts and made a
touchdown. Then, amid the cheers of the delighted thousands, he walked
back on the field, and while one of the players lay down on the ground,
with the spheroid delicately poised before his face, the same youth who
made the touchdown smote the ball mightily with his sturdy right foot
and sent it sailing between the goal-posts as accurately as an arrow
launched from a bow.

That exploit, as I have said, won the championship for the Orphions, and
the boy who did it was Jack Dudley. In the latter half of the game,
almost precisely the same opening presented itself again for the great
half-back, but he had no more than fairly started when he met an
obstruction in his path. The gritty opponent tackled him like a tiger,
and down they went, rolling over in the dirt, with a fierce violence
that made more than one timid spectator fear that both were seriously
injured. As if that were not enough, the converging players pounced upon
them. There was a mass of struggling, writhing youths, with Jack
underneath, and all piling on top of him. The last arrival, seeing
little chance for effective work, took a running leap, and, landing on
the apex of the pyramid, whirling about while in the air so as to alight
on his back, kicked up his feet and strove to made himself as heavy as
he could.

The only object this young man seemed to have was to batter down the
score of players and flatten out Jack Dudley, far below at the bottom;
but when, with the help of the referee, the mass was disentangled, and
Jack, with his mop-like hair, his soiled uniform, and his grimy face,
struggled to his feet and pantingly wai