about his football experience and about himself, and Clif gradually sank back against the chair and felt more at ease. Mr. McKnight leaned back, too, and listened and watched. Clif told about Providence and high school and his father and, before he realized it, how he had decided on Wyndham School. Mr. McKnight chuckled then, but it was a genial, understanding sort of chuckle, and Clif smiled in response, and after that the instructor didn't seem so awe-inspiring.
"That," said Mr. McKnight, "reminds me of the story of the boy whose father and mother wanted him to go to college but who wasn't keen on it himself. His father wanted Jack to go to Princeton and his mother wanted him to go to Harvard. (You can swap the names around to suit yourself, Bingham. I'm a Princeton man, and I'm telling it the Princeton way.) Jack didn't care where he went, you understand, and so, after his parents had argued the matter for weeks, he said, 'Tell you what, Dad. I'll toss a coin. If it comes down heads, you win and I go to Princeton. If it comes down tails, Ma wins and I go to Harvard.' So they agreed and Jack tossed up a quarter and when it fell and stopped rolling, there it was leaning up against the leg of a chair, straight on edge! Jack took a look at it and kicked it down the register. 'It's a "dud." I've got to go to Yale!'"
Clif laughed, but not so heartily as he might have if he had not at that period been vacillating between Yale and Brown as a scene for future scholastic and athletic triumphs!
