There was not the slightest chance that Mr. Lindsay’s reply could reach Seaton that night. None the less, three heavy-hearted fellows escorted Wolcott to the carrier’s window at the post-office, after the evening mail had arrived, and gazed eagerly over his shoulder while the clerk drew a bundle of letters from a certain pigeonhole, and, after rapidly slipping one over another, bestowed on the waiting students the regretful nod and smirk of sympathy familiar to disappointed applicants at post-office windows. From the office they crossed the street to the telephone station, and asked if Wolcott Lindsay had been called up by Boston. Receiving here also a negative answer, Wolcott demanded to talk with his father. When the connection was made, Ware squeezed into the booth behind him, while Laughlin, hopelessly crowded out of the narrow quarters, projected his head through the partly closed door.

“Is this you, father?” asked Wolcott. “Did you get my letter?”

Laughlin heard dimly the sound of a voice in reply; Ware caught a few of the words.

“You’ll decide it to-night, won’t you?” went on Wolcott. “It’s awfully important—you can’t possibly understand without being here how important. I’m really as sound as a nut. And they do need me. It seems as if I couldn’t possibly crawl out now.”

The answer this time came more distinctly; Ware at the words and Laughlin at the tone felt their hearts drop within them. On Wolcott’s face settled an expression of black despair as he listened with hurried breath to his father’s sympathetic yet unyielding response.

“But you’ll surely write to-night,” said the boy, when his chance to speak came; “and think of it as favorably as you can, won’t you? And remember that there are lots of competent judges who don’t agree with you. It can’t be as bad as you think if it has done me so much good.” Wolcott hung up the receiver and rose.

“What does he say?”

“It’s no go, I’m afraid. He will decide to-night, and write so that the letter will get to me to-morrow morning. The only good thing he sees about football is that the players are capable of getting up so good a brief for a bad cause.”

“Does that mean that he’s laughing at us?” demanded Poole.

“No, he was in earnest. He’ll give the arguments a fair hearing, and then decide against me.”

“It won’t be a fair hearing,” said Ware, “if his mind is already made up.”

Wolcott turned sharply. “He’ll do what he thinks is right, anyway—that I’m sure of.”

Laughlin gave his manager’s arm a tug that pulled him half across the room. “Come home, Dan, and let Wolcott alone. You can’t gain anything now by arguing. We’ve just got to take what Mr. Lindsay says and make the best of it.”

They parted for the night with few words. Wolcott, who would not listen to criticism of his father’s judgment from his friends, yet felt a very human resentment that he should be treated as a child whose opinion was valueless, in a matter with which he was familiar and his father obviously not, and that his father’s prejudices should be the only guide to the momentous decision. Great as was his mortification and his sense of ill treatment, he betrayed it openly to no one; and never had he the slightest notion of defying his father’s command.

The letter-carrier was waylaid next morning as he turned into the schoolyard and forced to deliver instantly. With the fatal scroll in their possession, the four boys hurried upstairs to Poole’s room, which lay nearest on their way, and sat in solemn silence while Wolcott read. The letter was as follows:—

“That settles it,” said Ware, heaving a sigh as Wolcott ceased reading. “When your father makes up his mind that his facts are the only ones, you may as well knuckle under.”

Laughlin and Wolcott said nothing. The former was cudgelling his brains to discover some new point of attack; the latter, convinced that the final decision had been made, sat dumb and hopeless, crushed by the weight of disappointment. At that moment nothing in the world seemed so wholly desirable as the privilege of playing in the Hillbury game, and no fellows so wholly enviable as those whose parents were undisturbed by anxieties as to broken joints and twisted sinews. He was roused from his fit of sullen brooding by Poole’s voice.

“Read it again, Wolcott,” commanded Phil, who was standing erect before his chair, his face bright with a new idea. “Read it again, or at least that part where he speaks of other competent judges.”

Wolcott found the place and reread the latter portion of the letter.

“Will he stand by what he says there, that if one of them will say you risk little or nothing, he’ll withdraw his objection?” demanded Poole.

“Of course he will!” returned Wolcott, hotly. “What kind of a man do you take him for?”

“Do you know any of these doctors?” continued Poole, paying no attention either to the indignant question or to the offended tone.

Wolcott shook his head sadly. “Only old Dr. Rawson who lives near us. He set my collar-bone five years ago, when I broke it falling down the front steps.”

“I’m surprised your father let you go down such a dangerous place,” remarked Ware. “I suppose he made you avoid danger after that by coming in the back way.”

“Shut up, Dan, I’m doing the talking now,” ordered Poole, wheeling quickly upon the interrupter. Then, turning to Wolcott again, he added, “Dr. Rawson would be likely to help you out, wouldn’t he?”

Wolcott made no reply unless the melancholy smile that appeared on his face at the suggestion of help from Dr. Rawson could be considered an answer.

“I believe there’s one man who will help us,” persisted Phil. “That Dr. Brayton is a Seaton alumnus, and knows football down to the ground—everything about it good and bad. If any one of the four doctors your father mentions will back you up, it’s Brayton. The thing for you to do is to get Grim to let you off for a day, and go up to Boston and see Brayton. If you tell him the story, and let him look you over, it’s an even chance that he’ll give you a clean bill of health. If he does, your father will have to back down.”

Wolcott leaned suddenly forward in his chair and fixed his eyes eagerly on Poole’s, while an expression of intense joy lighted his face. In a moment, however, the flash of hope had passed, and he sank back into his old position more despondent than ever.

“Is he the Brayton who was on the Seaton-Hillbury athletic committee last year?” asked Ware.

“Yes, and he helped save Dickinson for the team when they were trying to run him off, on a perfectly false charge of professionalism,” said Poole. “Dr. Brayton is as square a man as ever lived, and what’s more, believes in athletics.”

“I don’t suppose father knew that,” observed Wolcott.

“I don’t care whether he did or not,” retorted Poole, sharply. “All I say is, that if your father has agreed to take Brayton’s opinion, and there’s a chance of its being favorable, you’re a great fool if you don’t try to get it—unless you really don’t care to play.”

“He wants to play fast enough,” said Laughlin, taking the words out of Wolcott’s mouth, “and I’ll see that he tackles Dr. Brayton. If anybody thinks I’m going to play a poor man in that game when I can get a good one, he’s mistaken. The best we can scare up may not be good enough to beat Hillbury.”

Wolcott smiled feebly. “Of course I’ll try it, but I don’t expect anything to come of it.”

That night he arranged by telephone for an interview with Dr. Brayton, and on Saturday took the early train for Boston. It was a forlorn hope, but a hope none the less; and that was enough for the sanguine friends who gave him godspeed on his way. As for Wolcott’s own feelings, he had already suffered so much from suspense and disappointment that he went indifferent, expecting nothing good, fearing nothing bad.