ootball followers, and
crimson colors gave way to the somber black of umbrellas. Davies
raised his coat collar and pulled down his hat brim, making a dash for
a store front that carried a light-lunch sign.

It seemed that almost every one else made a dash for the same place at
the same time, and the race proved a dead heat with the first fifty.
These just managed to squeeze inside, Davies being about the
forty-seventh by half an elbow and several sore toes. It made him feel
as if he was bucking the line again; only there was little relish to it
this time, with the general pell-mell and every one calling out his
order in place of the familiar, "Rah, rahs!"

Just how Davies at last came by a Swiss-cheese sandwich and a cup of
pleasantly hot and fragrant coffee he never quite knew. He just found
himself jostled along, automatically holding out his hands when he came
up against the counter, taking what was thrust into them, putting it
out of sight as quickly as possible, while some one behind him was
fighting for his place, and then following the path of least
resistance, which led to the cashier's perch where the extent of his
hasty appetite was checked up in so many cents.

After that Davies discovered himself once more in the rain, feeling
strangely alone and just a little bit dazed. It was early yet. He had
half a notion to go up to the locker room and see the boys. He had
done this in other years, had even sat in the dugout with them and had
thrilled at the imagining that his presence had inspired them; but
somehow, this day, Davies felt his inadequacy. It was a sort of
left-out feeling; more than that, a sensing that his sun had set, that
perhaps he had worn the halo of gridiron hero too long, and that his
friends might have been humoring him.

It was such dampening, disconsolate thoughts as these that prompted
Davies to hail a taxicab and go directly to the stadium. He would
refrain from his usual haunts this year and, through this refraining,
see if he was missed. It was quite possible, did he not remind
Harvard, year by year, as to just who he was, that the old college
would forget him. He must remember that the world lived largely in the
present while he had been living largely in the past.

The rain had abated somewhat when Carrington emerged from the taxi and
joined the wet line of Harvard and Yale enthusiasts crowding through
the main entrance. There was life here; the atmosphere of expectancy