They were revising the line-up for the final game of the season, that with Fairfield, when Jack Groom entered: Coach Thornton, Payson Walsh, manager; Larry Logan, quarterback; and Jim Walsh, left guard. Had Tinker, the trainer, been on hand too, the Board of Football Strategy of Staunton School would have been, with Jack’s advent, complete. “Tink’s” absence, however, had been discounted: and the same was true of Jack, for none of those in the coach’s study had expected the captain to hobble all that half-mile between campus and village. There were four simultaneous exclamations of surprise when he appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, Doc says I’m out of it for good,” defended Jack. He lowered himself into a chair, leaned his crutches alongside and scowled malignantly at the bulky swathings of his right foot.
“Maybe, son, but you don’t want to have trouble with that ankle, even if you can’t play,” said Mr. Thornton.
“I’ve got all winter to coddle it,” Jack growled. “Shove that footstool over, Larry, will you? Well, what have you decided?”
“There wasn’t much to decide, Cap,” replied the coach. “With you out of it——”
“Preston or Morely.”
“Exactly. And it’s Preston, to my mind.” There was a suggestion of challenge in Mr. Thornton’s voice. Jack glanced at the others. Logan nodded, and so did Payson Walsh, but his brother remained non-committal.
“Ted Morely played a pretty snappy game to-day after I came out,” suggested Jack.
“Oh, Morely’s all right,” agreed the coach, “but in my opinion Preston’s a better man to start the game Saturday. We’ve got to get the jump on Fairfield, Cap, and to do that we ought to start with the best we have. Morely’s smart and fast and—and snappy, but I consider Preston more dependable.”
“Sure,” said the manager. “Ted’s a quitter.”
Jack turned to him, but Jim Walsh was quicker. “Cut that, Pay,” he growled. “You never saw Ted Morely quit in your life.”
“Well, you know what I mean,” his brother protested. “Maybe he isn’t a quitter, exactly, but—he quits! Doesn’t he, now? Didn’t he lie down in the Fielding game? Oh, I know he did something to his shoulder, but he was all right the next morning. It couldn’t have been much. I like Ted, but when it comes to picking a right half for Saturday——”
“The trouble is that he’s always getting hurt,” said Logan.
“He’s all right now,” Jack said. “He has had punk luck, I’ll grant you, but being laid up a couple of times hasn’t got anything to do with Saturday. And you say yourselves that he played a snappy game to-day.”
“I don’t believe it matters an awful lot,” said the coach. “It isn’t likely the chap who starts will finish, anyway. But you’re captain, and if you say Morely——”
“I’m not captain any longer,” returned Jack. “Larry had better take it on, hadn’t he? As for using Ted, I haven’t anything to say. Only you’re wrong about him. He’s played in hard luck, that’s all. I knew him back home. He didn’t play football then, but he was always a mighty spunky chap, and I never saw anything that looked like quitting. He is a bit light, but he’s a fighter, and he can do more damage in a broken field than anyone we have. I’ve heard fellows say, or intimate, just what Pay said a minute ago; that Ted’s a quitter. It’s too bad, for it’s a rank injustice, and I’d like to see him have a chance to prove it. But I’m not going to insist on playing him. You’re running this show, Coach, and after this minute I’m not going to have another word to say about it. After this Larry’s captain. I’m out of it.”
“Field captain, of course,” said the coach. “You’re still the real captain, Jack, and we want your advice and your help as much as ever.”
“Nothing doing!” Jack shook his head. “You won’t hear me open my mouth again, Thornton. I’m off. Anyone going up?”
“I’ll go along, I guess,” said Jim Walsh. “You don’t need me any more, do you, Coach?”
“No, I guess not. We don’t have to decide about Morely until the game starts, anyway, Cap. If you still think——”
“I’ve stopped thinking,” answered Jack, smiling, as he worked his crutches under his arm and, aided by Jim, swung himself up. “Good-night, everybody.”
“Hard luck,” said Payson Walsh as the departing couple passed down the short brick walk to the street and went off through the rustling leaves that lay thick on the sidewalk. “Poor Jack! I’ll bet he’s feeling perfectly rotten.”
“I know he is,” said Larry Logan. “When Jack doesn’t laugh once in a quarter of an hour——” He shook his head eloquently.
“We’ll miss him Saturday,” mused the coach. “I don’t mean any reflection on you, Logan.”
“I know. A team always feels lost without its captain. It’s going to make a difference in our chances of winning, too. I still think we can pull it out, but—we’ll have to work harder to do it.”
“Funny to have it happen in a game like to-day’s,” grumbled the manager. “Why, it was the easiest game of the season!”
“You never can tell about that,” replied Logan. “You get hurt when you least expect it. Remember two years ago when Tommy Winship broke his arm in the gym? He didn’t fall three feet! Well——” He stretched and yawned widely. “Gee, I’m tired! It was too blamed hot to-day for football.”
“Yes,” the coach agreed, absently. He was making meaningless marks on the edge of the paper before him. After a moment: “I suppose it would be a decent thing to please Jack under the circumstances and start Morely instead of Preston,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe it would matter much, anyway.”
“Pleasing Jack isn’t what we’re here for,” said Payson Walsh, frowning. “We want to win a week from to-day, Coach. That’s our stunt. Ted Morely’s a sort of protegé of Jack’s, and Jack thinks Ted’s been misjudged, and he wants to give the chap a chance to prove it. He said so himself. But we’re not staging the contest for Morely’s benefit. If he’s got the reputation of being a quitter—and as a matter of fact he has, as you know, Larry—it’s his own fault. It isn’t up to us to worry. Preston’s the man for the job and I say, use him.”
The coach nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said.
Had Ted Morely known what was being said about him down in the village he would not have sped his pen so calmly over the paper, but, as it was, he was at peace with the world. He was writing of the afternoon’s game at length and with, perhaps, unnecessary detail, for his father and mother knew woefully little about football. Having reached the end of the third page, he laid down his pen and read over his effort.
“It was rotten luck for Jack, and everyone’s awfully sorry for him. They say he’s quite out of the Fairfield game. Isn’t that the limit? I haven’t seen him since they lugged him off the field, but I guess he’s beastly cut up about it. I took his place after he was hurt and played all of the fourth quarter. You know I’ve been fighting Preston all Fall, and now it looks like I’d won. Anyway, if Jack doesn’t play Saturday I’m bound to get in sooner or later, for Fairfield plays a stiff game and not many fellows last through. To-day we were 17 to their 7 when I went in and Thornton ran in a lot of subs and we only tried to hold the other fellow from scoring any more. You needn’t worry about my shoulder because it’s just as good as it ever was. I wouldn’t have said anything about it if it had been serious——”
He scored that out heavily and wrote above it. “It was only a wrench and nothing to bother about. I’ve been in mean luck this Fall about getting bunged up. You remember I had tonsilitis when we played Camden High and then there was the time I sort of fainted at practice one day, but that was only something I’d eaten, the doctor said, and then hurting that old shoulder took me out of the Fielding game. I’ll bet you that if they let me play Saturday there won’t be anything the matter with me, or if there is no one will know it! We want to win this year pretty bad and the school’s made up its mind to do it, too. I wish you could see some of the meetings we’ve been having. Talk about enthusiasm, gee, no one’s got anything on us. Well, I’ll write again after the game and you’ll know then how it comes out. If you want to know before that you will find it in the Reading paper, I guess. Now I must stop and go to bed. I’ve written a pretty long letter for me. Lots of love to you both.”
He signed it “Your aff. son, Ted,” folded it away into the envelope, wrote the address and leaned the letter against the drop-light so that he would see it and remember to borrow a stamp from his room-mate and post it the next morning. Then, with a comfortable yawn, he arose and removed his jacket. In doing so he winced slightly, frowned and rubbed his left shoulder a moment before he began to wind the old-fashioned silver watch that had been his father’s and had descended to him on his sixteenth birthday, nearly a year ago. When his room-mate came in Ted was fast asleep and dreaming brave dreams.
Toward Jack Groom, Ted entertained an admiration that was closely akin to hero worship. Jack was not quite two years older, but to Ted he seemed more than that, and with liking went a respectful awe that to-day, the Sunday following the next to the last game of the Staunton schedule, kept Ted from doing what he really wanted to do, which was cross the yard to Fenton Hall and call on the captain. He wanted to let Jack know that he was horribly sorry about the accident and very sympathetic, but he was very much afraid of being thought presumptuous: only to himself Ted called it “fresh.” Ultimately he did go, but it was because Milton, Jack’s room-mate, hailed him after dinner with: “O Morely! Jack wants to see you. He’s over in the room. Run over now, will you?”
Jack was propped up on the window-seat when Ted entered, his offending foot pillowed before him. Ted’s condolences stumblingly uttered, Jack came to the reason for the summons. “I can’t play Saturday, Ted,” he announced, “and so I’ve dropped out of it entirely. Logan’s taken my place. I haven’t any more say about things. I wanted you to know that because it looks as if Preston would have the call over you. I think Thornton will start him Saturday. I’m sorry, Ted. I think you could play as good a game as Preston, maybe better, but Thornton thinks you’re a bit light. Of course, you’ll get in before the game’s over. You can’t help it, I guess. And, in any case, Thornton’ll see that you get your letter. I just wanted you to understand that it isn’t my doing, Ted.”
“Of course,” muttered the younger boy vaguely. “That’s all right, Jack. I—Preston——” He paused and swallowed. “I guess he’s better than I am, Jack.”
“Piffle! Next year you’ll put it all over him. Don’t mind about Saturday, old man. You’ve got another year yet.”
Which, reflected Ted, retracing his steps under the leafless maples, was true but not very consoling at the moment. He wished he had not written home with so much assurance. Still, if anything happened to Preston early in the game—not that he wished Preston ill-luck, of course. That would be pretty low-down. But accidents did happen! However, he put that line of conjecture out of his mind presently and strove to find comfort in the patriotic reflection that if Preston was preferred by the coach it was with good reason and meant that Staunton’s chances of winning would be bettered. And, after all, what everyone wanted, Ted amongst them, was a victory over Fairfield. By Monday afternoon he had learned to accept the disappointment with a fair degree of philosophy.
The coach’s intentions were not apparent during practice, either that day or on any other of the remaining work days. Ted and Preston were used alternately at right half and no favoritism was discernible. Preston, thought Ted, was worried and nervous. The fight for supremacy was telling on him and Tuesday afternoon he called down the coaches’ condemnation by twice “gumming up” plays. Ted knew that he was thinking too hard about Saturday’s contest to do justice to himself. As for Ted, he had seldom played the position better. Certain that the struggle was over, the consequent relief allowed him to put all his mind on his game, with the result that he went at it in a hammer-and-tongs style that was almost spectacular. He managed to forget very completely that Saturday would find him on the bench instead of on the field, and got a lot of joy and satisfaction from the moment. But after practice on Tuesday he got to thinking about Preston, and when Fate arranged a meeting on the gymnasium steps he yielded to an impulse. He and Preston were always extremely polite to each other, formally friendly, as became antagonists who thoroughly respected each other.
“I say, Preston,” began Ted, “I—there’s something you ought to know. I heard it by—by accident, but I know it’s straight.” Preston looked politely curious. “Thornton’s decided on you to start the game,” blurted Ted. “I thought you’d like to know it. Now you won’t have to—to worry, you see.”
“Why, thanks, Morely, but—you’re not stringing me, are you? Where did you hear it?”
“I can’t tell you that, but it’s—official.”
“Oh! Well, but—it’s a bit tough on you, Morely. Maybe you’re wrong. You’d better wait and see.”
“I don’t need to.” Ted smiled. “I know. I’m telling you so you can—can buckle down to business, Preston. You see, I know what it is to have the other fellow on your mind all the time! One of us had to lose out, Preston, and it happens to be me. Thornton thinks I’m too light. I dare say he’s right. Anyway, he’s the doctor, and as long as we beat Fairfield I don’t mind. Much,” he added as a sop to Truth.
“Well, it’s mighty decent of you,” said Preston warmly. “You’ve certainly given me a dandy scrap, and I don’t mind telling you that you’ve had me worried pretty often. I hope you get your letter.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will. So long.”
The last practice was on Wednesday and was largely signal work, although the kickers had a fairly stiff session later. On Thursday the school marched over to the field and cheered and sang and the first team substitutes went through a twenty-minute contest with the second eleven. Ted didn’t see it, for he was sent back to the gymnasium with the first squad, but he could hear the onlookers cheering the disbanding second when the scrimmage was over. And a few minutes later, while he was tying his shoe-laces, the marching, enthusiastic horde grouped in front of the gymnasium entrance and cheered the players individually, and the coaches and the trainer and everyone else. Ted listened rather anxiously for his own name. It came presently. He was somehow very glad of that. He would have felt horribly disappointed had they left him out.
Fairfield descended on the scene in force Saturday noon and the Campus and the village and the road between were gay with the flaunting blue of the enemy. The day was an Indian summer day, still, warm and hazy in the distances. Ted trotted with the rest to the field at a quarter to two and went through the warming up stunts. Then he donned a blanket and watched while the rival captains met in mid-field and a coin spun glittering in the sunlight. Fairfield had won the toss and had elected to give the ball to Staunton, thus upsetting Coach Thornton’s prophecy.
“All right now,” announced the latter. He referred to the little red book he carried in a vest pocket. “Aikens, Breadwell, Boyd, Morris, Walsh, Denton, Conley, Logan, Moore, Preston and Farnsworth. On the run, fellows!”
Presently a whistle piped, the new brown pigskin arose high against the blue sky and the final test of the long season’s work was begun. The cheering had stilled on both sides of the field and some two thousand pairs of eyes followed the long flight of the ball. Then a Fairfield half-back had it and was dodging back up the gridiron. Breadwell almost got him, but he slipped past. Then Larry Logan wrapped two sturdy arms about the runner’s legs and brought him crashing to the yellowed turf. Fairfield came hard then and Ted watched anxiously as the Staunton line bent and buckled against the heavy assault. But the line didn’t break much and presently the ball was in air again. Then came the first trial of the Staunton wide-open attack, and a mighty shout arose as Moore burst through outside right guard and reeled past two white lines. Again Moore got through, and then the Fairfield defense solved the play and shifted to meet it, and Farnsworth, faking a kick and then plunging at the Fairfield left, was spilled behind his line. A forward pass failed and again the ball flew through the air, propelled by Farnsworth’s boot, and the teams raced down to the Blue’s thirty-yard line. That quarter ended without anything approaching a score, the honors even. But Thornton’s plan to “get the jump” on the enemy and score in the first few minutes of play had failed.
The second period was a repetition of the first, save that Fairfield had the ball once on Staunton’s twenty-two yards on a fourth down and missed a goal from the field by a bare half-foot margin. Ted trotted back to the gymnasium with the others and sat around in an atmosphere of steam and liniment and excitement and listened to the babel of voices. Jack was in uniform but had not joined the players for a moment, and it was Larry Logan who fumed and implored and advised. Coach Thornton looked confident and had little to say until just before half-time was up. Then he made a quietly forceful appeal and, at the end, called for a cheer. Thirty-two voices answered thunderously.
Fairfield scored two minutes after the third period started. The kick-off was fumbled by Logan, and, although he fell on it, at his eighteen yards, Fairfield blocked Farnsworth’s punt and an end broke through and captured the trickling pigskin a foot behind the goal line. Fairfield brought the ball out in triumph, and it was then that Ted saw that one brown-legged player was stretched on the turf. “Tink” was diving toward him with slopping bucket. Ted’s eyes sped from player to player of his side. Only Preston was missing along the goal line! Something pushed his heart into his throat, turned it over once and let it slip slowly back again. He watched “Tink’s” sponge in fascination. Then they were lifting Preston to his feet. For an instant it seemed that he was as good as ever, but suddenly his head fell over sideways. They were carrying him off now, bringing him to the bench. Someone amongst the subs leaped forward with a blanket. The stand behind was cheering bravely for “Preston! Preston! Preston!” Thornton met the slowly-approaching group at the side line, looked, listened to a word from Tinker and whirled on his heel.
“Morely! Get in there! Hurry up!” he called.
Ted squirmed from his sweater and raced. Panting, he slipped between Breadwell and Moore under the cross-bar and waited. A hand waved downward, the ball flew toward them, there was a moment of suspense and a roar of relief arose from the Staunton stand. Fairfield had failed at the goal. Six points to nothing was the score, and virtually half the game remained to be played.
Larry Logan shot a dubious look at Ted as the latter fell into place beside Moore when Fairfield had the ball again on her own thirty-four yards. But he managed a cheerful: “All right, Ted! Let’s see what you can do! Hard, now!”
But it was Fairfield’s policy to slow up now, and she halted in her signals and wasted all the time she could without risking a penalty. Staunton held gamely and then spoiled a forward pass and took the ball on downs. The wide-open attack was still working, for Fairfield’s men were a bit heavier and a bit slower and Logan was getting a lot of jump into his plays. Ted got his chance and crashed through for a scant three yards, got it again and was downed almost in his tracks by an unguarded end. Then Moore slipped around right tackle and ran twelve yards before he was forced over the side line. Staunton got to the enemy’s twenty-three before she was held, and then Farnsworth tried a place kick and missed the goal by five yards.
And so it went, Fairfield sparring for time, Staunton forcing the playing, smashing desperately, running hard, aching to score. Changes were made. Morris went out at center and young Joyce took his place. Greenough came in for Breadwell. With three minutes of the quarter left the ball was Staunton’s in mid-field. Loring had wasted a down on a weird trick play that had lost four yards and now Farnsworth was called on. It was the old fake kick and wide run, but it worked, just as it so often does, and the big full-back galloped over three white streaks before they stopped him. Then, with the line-up close to the side of the field, Logan called on Ted. Moore crossed over in front of him, Farnsworth ran with him. Larry hid the ball a moment and then, as Ted rushed past, thumped it against his stomach. The Fairfield line was wide open in the middle and Ted went through like a shot. After that he had to spin and feint and dodge, but he kept going forward, kept wresting himself from clutching hands, kept passing the lines underfoot. The goal came closer and closer and for a wonderful moment he thought he was going to make it. But the Fairfield quarter spoiled that. He refused to believe in Ted’s move toward the side line and got him firmly about the knees and wouldn’t be kicked loose. And then, when Ted toppled to earth, clutching the ball frenziedly, a pursuing end crashed down upon him and a million stars blazed before Ted’s astonished eyes and he fainted.
When he came around, barely a half-minute later, they were pumping his arms and he had to gasp with the pain of it. Then came Tinker and the water pail and the big, dripping, smelly sponge, and Tinker’s anxious: “Where’d they get you, boy?”
Ted did a lot of thinking in something under a second. Too often already this season had he had to be led off the field. He dared “Tink’s” searching eyes and gasped: “Nowhere ... Tink. I’m ... all right!”
“You’re not! Don’t be telling lies.” Tinker’s crafty fingers went exploring. Up one leg, down another, over the boy’s chest—Ted never flinched. He smiled railingly.
“Let me up, you ninny,” he expostulated. “I’m all right. That fellow knocked the breath out of me, that’s all.”
Tinker doubted and looked it. But he dropped the sponge back into the pail and stood up. “Come on, then,” he commanded. “Let’s see.”
Ted raised himself with his right hand and sprang nimbly enough to his feet, laughing. Tinker grunted, shot a suspicious look, saw no evidences of injury and swooped down on his pail. “All right!” he said. “Go to it!”
It was Moore who gained the next two yards and Moore who lost them again. Farnsworth bucked through past guard for four. It was maddening to be on the eleven yards with only one down left and six to go. Larry hesitated and the enemy jeered. A forward pass was all that would answer, and Staunton’s forwards had signally failed all the afternoon. But what must be must be and Larry gave the signals. It was Farnsworth who remonstrated. Larry listened to his whispers and looked doubtful and finally shook his head. But shaking his head was only camouflage, for the signals were changed. Ted’s heart leaped as he heard them. Then the silence of the portentous instant before the impact, and the signals repeated, and Ted taking the ball on a longish pass from Joyce and springing away to the left, with Moore interfering. Then came the frenzied cry of “In! In!” and, sure enough, as Moore went down, a hole opened, and Ted, pivoting, turned toward the goal line. It was only a few yards distant, but the Blue’s backs were flocking to its defense and Ted was already in the midst of them. Arms settled at his waist, but he tore away. Someone crashed into him from behind and he was flung forward, his feet stumbling behind him. They got him then. A hand brushed past his face and thumped down on his left shoulder and Ted gasped and doubled up and went down, vainly, as it seemed, trying to push the pigskin forward as the trampled turf leaped up to meet him. And as he fell he found himself saying to himself in a darkness lurid with whirling stars and meteors: “I won’t faint! I won’t faint!”
He didn’t, but he lay very still when they pulled the foe from him and he had to be fairly lifted to his feet. And when he was on them he could only lean against Farnsworth and whisper gaspingly: “Don’t let go of me, please! Just a minute! Just a minute!” So Farnsworth, grinning happily, for the ball was over the line by three inches, held him up and no one paid much attention to the fact. Presently things stopped whirling madly around in Ted’s world and he groped his way back to the gridiron and dazedly watched while Farnsworth, after much cogitation amidst a great silence, lifted the pigskin straight over the cross-bar!
The quarter ended a moment later and the teams changed places. Staunton fought for time now, as Fairfield had done before, but went to no undue lengths to secure it. She was a point to the good and would have been satisfied had the game ended then and there, but she had also learned the joy of battle and was willing to fight on. Fairfield came back with a desperation that for the first few minutes lifted the home team from her feet. But she rallied on her thirty and took the ball away by a carefully measured two inches and started back again. She could not afford to risk anything now and so it was a case of hit the line and hold the ball. And she did hit it! Moore had to give up, but the eager substitute who took his place made good. Farnsworth still pegged away, as mighty as ever, although when play stopped for a moment he could hardly stand up and Tinker was watching him frowningly from the side of the field. Ted had more chances and played them through, gaining more often than not. But he, too, was almost gone it seemed, and Larry was considerate for what he had already done.
The shadows lengthened and the game drew to its end. Fairfield was still cheering on the stands, still hopeful on the field. A misjudged punt brought a groan of dismay from the Staunton adherents and gave the enemy her opportunity to pull the game from the fire. It was Stirling, the substitute left half, who erred, and of a sudden the enemy was pounding at the Staunton gate. From the twenty-six yards to the fifteen she fought her way in the four downs. There, unwisely, perhaps, scorning a field goal, she raced against the clicking seconds of the timekeeper’s watch and plunged on toward a touchdown. Two yards—three—one—and there were but four to go, with Staunton digging her cleats into the torn turf of the last defense.
The enemy staged a try-at-goal, but Staunton refused to believe in it, and, as it was proved, rightly. For the ball went back to a half instead of the kicker and he sped off toward the left and the line broke and followed him. His run started near the twenty yards and he ran in to the fifteen before he began to circle. By that time the interference was solid about him and when he turned in it seemed that sheer weight of numbers would carry the ball over. The Staunton defenders went down battling gamely, the rush slowed but kept moving. Somewhere in that mêlée was the runner with the precious ball hugged tightly to his body. They were pushing past the ten-yard line now. Cries of exhortation, of despair and of triumph arose above the panting and gasping and the thud of bodies. To the eight yards—to the seven——.
SOMEWHERE IN THAT MÊLÉE WAS THE RUNNER WITH THE PRECIOUS BALL
A brown-legged player picked himself from the turf with distorted face and plunged at the struggling mass. Somehow he penetrated it and was swallowed from sight. And then, wonder of wonders, the forward movement stopped, the mass swayed, gave before the desperate force of the defenders and moved back. From somewhere a faint gasp of “Down!” was heard. But already the whistle had blown.
The ball was found just past the six yards. Above it lay a grim-faced Fairfield half-back and above him, one arm, the right, wrapped tenaciously about his knees, lay Ted. And, although they had to fairly pry that arm and its clutching fingers loose, Ted knew nothing about it, for he had fainted again!
The home team rushed once, kicked out of danger and the game was over and the crowds overflowed the field, Staunton cheering ecstatically and wildly as she sought to capture her players. But Ted, over by the bench, knew very little of that. He felt Tinker’s tenderly cruel fingers exploring his left shoulder and he groaned. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help it. And he heard Thornton ask solicitously: “Break, Tink?”
“Sure. Shoulder blade. A nice clean break, too. He did it when they tackled him down near their goal that time. He wouldn’t let on and he had me fooled till I noticed a few minutes ago that he wasn’t using his left arm much!”
“Hm!” said the coach.
“And that ain’t all of it either,” continued the trainer, his fingers still at work. “It feels to me like he’d had trouble there before. There’s a sort of lump—All right, lad, I won’t hurt you any more. You’re a plucky little divil! I’ll say that for you!”
And last of all Ted heard Jack Groom’s voice from a great distance: “And that’s the fellow you said was a quitter!”
Then, following that beastly habit of his, Ted fainted again!