ort. "Oh," he said
finally, "I really needed the position."

The girl gazed at him a moment. Armitage, bending low, could see a
patent leather pump protruding from the scalloped edge of her skirt,
tapping the half-opened door of the tonneau.

"You will then pardon me," she said, "if I call to your mind the fact
that you are now employed as driver of my car: I feel I have the right
to ask you who you really are."

"Your mother--Mrs. Wellington, catechised me quite fully and I don't
think I could add anything to what I told her."

"And what was that? I was not present during the inquisition," said
the girl.

Armitage laughed.

"Why, I told her I was Jack McCall, that I came from Louisville, that I
had trained the Navy eleven of 19--."

An exclamation from the girl interrupted him and he looked up. She was
staring at him vacantly, as though ransacking the depths of memory.

"The Navy eleven of 19--," she said thoughtfully. Then she smiled.
"McCall, you are so clever, really."

Armitage's eyes fell and he fumbled with the wrench.

"Thank you," he said, dubiously.

"Not at all, McCall," she said sweetly. "Listen," speaking rapidly, "I
have always been crazy over football. Father was at Yale, '79, you
know." She studied his face again, and then nodded. "When I was a
girl, still in short dresses, father took a party of girls in Miss
Ellis's school to Annapolis in his private car to see a Harvard-Navy
game. A cousin of mine, Phil Disosway, was on the Harvard team. They
were much heavier than Annapolis; but the score was very close,
particularly because of the fine work of one of the Navy players who
seemed to be in all parts of the field at once. I have forgotten his
name,"--Miss Wellington gazed dreamily over the hills,--"but I can see
him now, diving time after time into the interference and bringing down
his man; catching punts and running--it was all such a hopeless fight,
but such a brave, determined one." She shrugged her shoulders.
"Really, I was quite carried away. As girls will, I--we, all of
us--wove all sort of romantic theories concerning him. Toward the end
of the game we could see him giving in under the strain and at last
some coaches took him out. He walked tottering down the side lines
past our stand, his face drawn and streaked with blood and dirt. I
snapshotted that player. It was a good picture. I had it enlarged and
have always kept it in my room. 'The Dying Gladiator,' I h