ff before
defeat and disgrace come upon us. All is lost save honour! Ah, woe is
me!"

"Cut it out, Amy," begged Edwards. "You don't know anything about
football, you idiot."

"Two in the line and two in the backfield is good," jeered Tim. "We've
lost Blaisdell and Innes and Tyler----"

"Never was any good," interpolated Amy.

"And Roberts and Marvin----"

"Carmine's better!"

"And Kendall and Harris!" concluded Tim triumphantly.

"Never mind, Timmy, you've still got me!" replied Amy sweetly. "Gee, to
hear you rave you'd think the whole team had graduated!"

"So it has, practically!"

"Ah, yes, and I heard the same dope this time last year. We'd lost
Miller and Sawyer and Williams and--and Milton and a dozen or two more
and there wasn't any hope for us! And all we did was to go ahead and
dodder along and beat Claflin seven to nothing! Not so bad for a
lifeless corpse, what?"

Steve Edwards laughed. "Well, maybe we do talk trouble a good deal about
this time of year. It's natural, I guess. You lose fellows who played
fine ball last year and you can't see just at first how anyone can fill
their places. Someone always does, though. That's the bully part of it.
I dare say we'll manage to dodder along, as Amy calls it, and rub it
into old Claflin as we've been doing."

"First sensible word I've heard tonight," said Amy approvingly. "I
wouldn't kick so much if I only had to hear this sort of stuff
occasionally, but I'm rooming with the original crepe-hanger! Clint sobs
himself to sleep at night thinking how terribly the dear old team's shot
to pieces. If I remark in my optimistic, gladsome way, 'Clint, list how
sweetly the birdies sing, and observe, I prithee, the sunlight gilding
yon mountain peak,' Clint turns his mournful countenance on me and
chokes out something about a weak backfield! Say, I'm gladder every day
of my life that I stayed sane and----"

"Stayed _what_?" exclaimed Jim Morton incredulously.

"And didn't become obsessed with football mania!"

"Where do you get the words, Amy?" sighed Clint Thayer admiringly.

"Amy's the original phonograph," commented Tim. "Only he's an
improvement on anything Edison ever invented. You don't have to wind Amy
up!"

"No, he's got a self-starting attachment," chuckled Draper.

"Returning to the--the original contention," continued Amy in superb
disdain of the low jests, "I'll bet any one of you or the whole kit and
caboodle of you that we beat Claflin again