d not help wondering why the fact was of importance enough
to be chronicled in the daily press along with the telegraphic news,
and the deaths and marriages. It was evidently a matter of
considerable moment, though I could not quite see why.

"He will be perfectly delighted," said Josephine. "He has been
extremely doubtful whether he would be chosen. Oh, Fred," she
exclaimed, in a tone of solicitude, "do you really think it's safe?"

How exactly that was like a woman. Here was my wife, who had secretly
aided and abetted her son in his design, and been the recipient of his
hopes and fears on the subject, turning to me, who had dared to utter a
feeble protest or two only to be scoffed at, and summarily sat upon,
asking if the game was really safe.

"There are certain risks in this world that a man has to take," I
answered, borrowing the sentiment which she had uttered on the occasion
of our affair with the burglars.

Josephine did not appreciate my irony. "Why, oh why, did you give your
consent to his playing foot-ball?" she asked, tragically. "I
understand that it is a terribly rough and dangerous game."

"I give my consent? This is monstrous, Josephine, monstrous. I did
not wish to be a killjoy and a marplot, or I would have forbidden Fred
to touch a foot-ball after he entered college. Had you, my dear, given
me the least bit of support, I should have nipped the whole business in
the bud. Yet now you seek to throw the blame on me."

The suggestion of the dire parental sternness of which I had evidently
just missed being guilty caused her thoughts to fly off on an opposite
tack. "The poor darling, his heart was so set on being chosen," she
said. "I am sure, Fred, it would have been a terrible blow to him if
he had not succeeded."

"I dare say that it was his chief motive in going to college," I
interjected, a little indignantly.

"I really think it was," she murmured, with sweet maternal sympathy.
"I shall live though in constant dread until it is over and done with."

"What is over and done with?"

"The Harvard-Yale foot-ball match. It's on account of that he's been
so anxious to belong. And, Fred, he said to me the other day that if
he was chosen, he hoped that we would go to Springfield to see the
game. It is terrible to think that I might see him killed before my
eyes, but he is set on our going."

"It is all a piece of infernal nonsense," I remarked, with majestic
dignity; nevertheless, t