et and cold, cleared his brain a trifle--let in
the screaming of the multitude, hoarse and incoherent, raised at first
in thanksgiving for his run, then, after its close, altering to menacing
disappointment and command. What business had they to tell him what to
do? Up there, warm and comfortable, undergoing no exercise more violent
than occasional excited rising and sitting down, they had the selfish
impudence to order him to make a touchdown. Why should he obey, or even
try? He had done his job, more than any one could reasonably have asked
of him. He had outplayed Lambert, gained more ground than any man on the
field, made more valuable tackles. Could he really impress Sylvia any
further? Why shouldn't he walk off now in the face of those unjust
commands to the rest he had earned and craved with all his body and
mind?

"Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! Morton! Morton! Morton!"

Damn them! Why not, indeed, walk off, where he wouldn't have to listen
to that thoughtless and autocratic impertinence?

He glanced down at his blackened hands, at his filthy breeches, at his
jersey striped about the sleeves with orange; and with a wave of
self-loathing he knew why he couldn't go. He had sworn never to wear
anything like livery again, yet here he was--in livery, a servant to men
and women who asked dreadful things without troubling even to
approximate the agony of obedience.

"I'll not be a servant," he had told Bailly.

Bailly had made him one after all, and an old phrase of the tutor's
slipped back:

"Some day, young man, you'll learn that the world lives by service."

George had not believed. Now for a moment his half-conscious brain knew
Bailly had been right. He had to serve.

He knocked aside the sponge Green held to his face. He indicated the
bucket of cold water the trainer had carried out.

"Throw it over my head," he said, "the whole thing. Throw it hard."

Green obeyed. He, too, who ought to have understood, was selfish and
imperious.

"You make a touchdown!" he commanded hoarsely.

The water stung George's eyes, rushed down his neck in thrilling
streams, braced him for the time. The teams lined up while the
Princeton stands roared approval that their best servant should remain
on the job.

Goodhue called the signal for a play around the left tackle. Every Yale
player was confident that George would take the ball, sensed the
direction of the play, and, over-anxious, massed there, all but the
quarter