“It works well both ways,” continued Mr. York. “The college gets the services of, say, a good football man, and the student gets an education. It’s a fair exchange.”

“But isn’t it a good deal like—like paying a fellow to play for the college, sir?”

“Oh, there’s nothing like that to it! Here’s the way it’s done, Craig. Most graduates like to see their college stand high in everything, athletic as well as educational efficiency. Some of them have money and they’re glad to spend a portion of it for their college. When they run across a fellow who—well, a fellow like you, for instance, who has a talent for baseball, they say to themselves, ‘Here’s a chap who could help us win our games. He can’t afford to go to college unless he can find some way to meet his expenses. Let’s find a position for him.’ So they use their influence and the chap gets the managership of one of the fraternity houses, or becomes dining-hall steward, or something of that sort. The work isn’t hard and the salary is sufficient to pay his tuition and ordinary expenses; and he gets his room and board as a part of his remuneration. He has plenty of time for study and plenty of time to perform his part of the—er—bargain, which is to play on the eleven or the nine or whatever the team may be. It’s all honest and fair and—customary.”

Sam looked troubled. “I didn’t know that was done,” he said after a moment. “Of course, I’d heard of such things, but I always thought it was just—just talk.”

“It’s done every day,” replied the other cheerfully. “Lucky it is, too, for a lot of worthy fellows who otherwise wouldn’t get the education they need. Take your case, Craig. I don’t know what line you expect to take up, but whatever it is, you know as well as I do that you ought to go through college. There’s nothing like a college education to fit a chap for his profession or business. I don’t mean only what he learns from books; I mean what he learns from association with other men of his own age, from instructors and professors as well; from being part of a small and busy world in which he is confronted by just such problems and difficulties—temptations, too—as he will meet with later in the bigger world. He has responsibilities and duties and learns to meet them and perform them, and in doing it he acquires self-dependence and self-control. A college education is a sort of general massage, Craig; it develops mind and body, brain and muscles. Don’t you think that’s so?”

“Yes, sir, I guess it is, but——”

“Very well. Now you need college, old man. Why not have it? You have something to exchange for your course. You have a fine talent for baseball. Take my own college, for instance, Warner; and there isn’t a finer one East or West. We need a chap like you to play on our ball team in a couple of years. And in return for your services we’ll give you an education. We won’t do it by buying you, Craig. We will do it by finding you a position that will meet your money requirements. And there’ll be no strings to you. We simply say, ‘Here’s a four-year course at Warner for you, which you are to pay for by filling this position to the best of your ability. All we ask beside that is that you play baseball for us and do your honest best to make good.’ That’s all. See what I mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, if you had told me that you had selected your college I wouldn’t have said anything about this. But you haven’t, and you tell me you don’t believe you’ll go to college because of the expense. So, being a loyal grad, as well as a baseball enthusiast, I make this proposition to you, Craig, knowing that it is a mutually beneficial one; beneficial to you, as you can’t help seeing, and beneficial to Warner College in the way I’ve pointed out. And, lest you think the thing is all loyalty and unselfishness on my part, I don’t mind acknowledging that it would give me a lot of genuine satisfaction and pleasure, as well as a new interest, to be the means of bringing you and the college together. I don’t ask you to decide this matter now. Take all the time you want, Craig. You’ve got a year at high school yet, and, for that matter, if you preferred to wait another year before entering college there’d be no objection. In fact, it might be a good plan. You’d still be only nineteen, which is young enough, and you’d probably be of more good to the team. Of course, though, if you did that you’d need to keep on with your baseball work. It might be a good idea for you to play one summer on an amateur or a semi-professional team just for the experience. But you’d have to be careful not to accept any money. That sort of thing gets around and you might find yourself a professional; in which case we couldn’t use you at Warner, you know. You mull it over, old man, and then, later on in the autumn, drop me a line. Perhaps I’ll be down in your town before long and we can talk it over again. I’m not trying to force your hand to-night. Take all the time you want to decide, Craig.”

“I guess I don’t need any more time, Mr. York,” answered Sam ruefully. “I’m very much obliged to you, and—and I appreciate your wanting to help me like that, but—I’d rather not, sir.”

“You think it over. Don’t decide now.”

“I’d rather, please. I’m sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have—have you let you go to all this bother with me. I’m—I’m awfully sorry, Mr. York, honest!” And Sam observed the other regretfully, apologetically.

Mr. York stared a moment. Then, “Look here, Craig,” he said drily, “you’ve got rather a mean idea of me, haven’t you?”

“Why, no, sir!”

“Sounds so. You think I invited you down here to put you under an obligation to me, eh? So that when I made that proposition to you, you’d feel more or less obliged to accept it. Well, now let me tell you something, Craig. I didn’t. I asked you down here because I liked you and because I wanted to do anything I could to make you comfortable. You may believe that or not, as you please, but it’s so.”

“I do!” said Sam earnestly. “I’m sorry I thought anything else, even for a minute. If I’d stopped to think I wouldn’t have, I guess. I—I beg your pardon.”

“You needn’t, Craig. Come to look at it from your point of view, I don’t blame you for your conclusion. I guess it does look a bit as if I had been ‘swiping.’ I’m sorry. But please get it out of your mind, if it’s still there, that my—er—hospitality has anything to do with my offer regarding Warner. It hasn’t. I’d have asked you here if you didn’t know a baseball from a quinine pill——” Mr. York paused, laughed, and corrected himself. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have, though, for my liking for you began when I saw you catch that game last June. I’m inclined, you see, to be predisposed in favour of any chap who can play baseball well, and ready to hug one who acts like a regular catcher. But I’d have asked you here if I’d known beforehand that there wasn’t a chance of nabbing you for Warner, old man. That settles that. Let’s forget it. Sorry I put myself in the position I did. As for the proposition, why, we’ll say no more about it.”

“I think I’d like to explain a little,” said Sam. “I don’t want you to think I’m—ungrateful——”

“Piffle!”

“Or—or goody-goody. But the thing looks to me”—Sam hesitated and tried to choose an expression that would not wound his host—“it looks to me too much like—like cheating.”

“Then I haven’t put it well, Craig. Now, look here——”

“Putting it well,” replied Sam, with a slow smile, “wouldn’t affect the fact, sir, would it? It seems to me that it doesn’t much matter whether you give me money outright to pay my expenses at Warner or whether you pay that money to a fraternity and say, ‘Here, you give this to Sam Craig and tell him it’s salary.’”

“But it is salary!”

“But you’d be paying it, sir.”

“Someone would have to, and I could afford it. Why, hang it, the thing’s done every day, I tell you!”

“Maybe, sir, but——” Sam paused a moment. Then, “Mr. York, if I happened to be your son and I told you someone had made me such an offer, would you say, ‘Take it’?”

“No, because if you were my boy it wouldn’t be necessary for you to accept—er——”

“Charity, you were going to say, weren’t you, sir? But suppose you couldn’t afford to pay my tuition at college, sir. Then what? Would you want me to accept the—the proposition?”

“Why not? It’s a fair business arrangement, isn’t it, Craig?”

“Perhaps it is, but if you were my father would you want people to say that I was being paid to play baseball for some college?”

Mr. York’s gaze turned to the open door and a frown puckered his forehead. Several moments passed. Sam, with that little smile that seldom got farther than his eyes, watched and waited. Finally Mr. York turned his gaze back to the boy and an unwilling smile overspread his face, a smile that was more than half a scowl.

“I’ll be blessed if I would, Craig!” he said.

Another moment of silence went by. Then, “Just the same, old man, you took a mean advantage of me, then,” he objected ruefully. “You see, I haven’t a boy. Wish I had. If I had I’d be as cranky as an old hen about him. Well, that’s settled, Craig, and you win. I’m sorry——”

He paused, pulled himself out of his chair, and frowned.

“Hanged if I’m sorry,” he laughed. “I’m glad of it! Langham told me I’d fall down, and—and I guess, on the whole, I’m glad I did. Now let’s go to bed, eh?”