ct. He stigmatized the modern game as it was
played by University students as a barbaric spectacle, dangerous to
limb, if not to life. Horace has always been more or less of a
pepper-pot, but he is not exactly a croaker, and he served in the war
with distinction. Hence his diatribe made me frown, even though it
rather amused me. It was written in the autumn of the year before Fred
went to Cambridge, and I read it aloud to the family circle as being of
interest to a sub-freshman.

"What perfect nonsense!" exclaimed that profound young gentleman, when
I had finished. "The man who wrote that letter is a flub-dub, father."

Though not aware of the precise meaning of this epithet, I realized
that it was a severe arraignment. I felt, too, that my manner of
reading the communication had given license to my boy's tongue. I
answered, therefore, with some unction:

"The writer, Horace Plympton, is a brave and sensible man. I know him
very well."

"I guess he never kicked foot-ball."

"In his day the young men who were fortunate enough to be sent to
college were better occupied. Foot-ball? It is a game for
high-schools, not universities."

"It is the greatest game of the day, father," said my sub-freshman,
with the haughty consciousness of superior knowledge which the waning,
though reigning, generation has so often to bow to.

Of course that settled the question. I believe that I made a futile
remark to the effect that the president ought to put a stop to it, or
something of the sort, but I knew enough to know that I had been
convicted of error. I saw Fred glance at his sisters, and all three at
their mother, who looked anxious in her desire not to seem to take
sides against me, though manifestly sympathizing with them. I said to
myself that if foot-ball was the greatest game of the day, I was not
going to put my foot down and prevent my boys from playing it merely
because I was old fogy enough not to understand that it was the
greatest game of the day, and Horace Plympton had written a letter to
the _Evening Times_. Accordingly, when the time came for Fred to go to
college I merely cautioned him generally against wasting his time, and
uttered no fulminations against foot-ball in particular.

"On the University foot-ball eleven?" I echoed, taking the newspaper
from my wife, and as I read I felt a little lump of emotional pride
rise in my throat. There it was, sure enough, in black and white,
though I coul