Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/289

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TRYING FOR THE TEAM

no man. This does not apply to downy kids and nincompoops—"paper sports," I believe you call them. In my day there was a little Southerner named Reddy Armstrong, and he was the real thing—whew! you would hardly have called him a "paper sport!" For two years he kept up a thrilling pace. He marked out a vivid red career. He was the sort who can stay up all night doing things he was not sent to college for—"extra-curriculum work"; and then after a cold plunge in the morning he'd seem as fresh and cool and clear-eyed as an athlete in training. Some of the fellows used to call him the Parson, not only on account of the aforementioned reasons, but because, fond as he was of poker, when twelve o'clock struck on Saturday night he always threw down his hand, no matter how promising it looked, and said in his broad, delightful manner: "Gentlemen, it is Sunday morning. I bid you good-night."

In Junior-year, it seems, Reddy became very well acquainted with his roommate's sister and—he came back to college a new

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