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Hargreaves, comments which hurt as he listened, which almost seemed to alienate him from the school. They were comments in tone and accent different from Mr. Goldman’s. Aw, he had it coming to him, the big lug. He happened to go down under that block; so what? Football’s a tough game.
    But the older man kept on. “And the flowers. You never saw such flowers. The principal, that man...”
    “Mr. Hetherington...”
    “That’s it. He came down with flowers, brought his wife, too. And the school sent ’em, and the team sent ’em. Please thank ’em for Meyer, and me, too. Please thank the gentlemen.”
    Somehow Ronald didn’t feel at all like a gentleman. He felt uncomfortable and unhappy and anxious to get out. The face in that ugly collar staring straight ahead showed a sudden spasm of pain. Ronald broke away from the arm on his; as difficult as shaking off a tackler in a broken field. He approached the bed.
    “Y’know, Goldman, I feel terribly about this. About that block, I mean. Gee, I haven’t been able to sleep... or do anything. You see we wanted to stop you, to save a touchdown...”
    The face murmured something. He couldn’t catch what it was, but the faintest kind of a smile came over the lips. “Ok.” Or something of that sort.
    If only they could see him, Ronald thought, if only they could see that awful collar up to his chin, and that set face staring straight ahead, motionless, expressionless. They wouldn’t talk as they did. They couldn’t.
    “Guess I’ll hafta be slipping along. Hope you get better, Goldman, and fast, too. The boys all wanted me to tell you how bad they felt about this thing.” Once again, it wasn’t in the least what he wanted to say. The things he wanted to say wouldn’t come, and those he did say had no sincerity and no truth in them. What he wanted to say was:
    Look; I can’t sleep; I can’t do my work; I can’t hardly think about you; I can’t talk to anyone at school; I can’t discuss the thing at all, and when they mention your name and the accident it hurts me, inside, deep. Understand? I’m responsible, I did it. No matter what they tell you, it’s on me; that’s why you’re wearing that awful leather collar, why your neck was broken. We did it on purpose, to put you out of the game. And we almost killed you.
    No, it wouldn’t come. Something stopped him. Instead he was saying, “So long, Goldman, I’ll be seeing you.” He backed toward the door, his forehead wet with perspiration, the man with the glasses still talking.
    From the bed he could see that face without expression still staring straight ahead.
III
    “Anyone heard how Goldman’s coming along?” Half a dozen of them sat in Keith and Ronny’s room in Hargreaves three weeks after the game.
    “Dunno exactly. He’ll be in the hospital quite some time before they let him out, I know. For further particulars, ask Ronny.”
    “Yes, Ronny probably knows. He’s our authority on Goldman,” remarked Tommy Gilmore.
    “Ronny’s practically a buddy of Goldman’s these days; goes to the hospital all the time...”
    “That’s right,” Keith interjected. “He goes down about twice a week. Fact he’s there right now.”
    “No, he isn’t.” Tommy was looking out the window. “He’s coming across the Quad this minute.”
    There was a silence lasting some few seconds. Five of the six boys in the room were on the team, and they were thinking. Of the game, and Goldman’s injury, and Ronny’s refusal to play football anymore, and his strangeness toward them since. Almost as if he was an outsider. Someone remarked that Ronald seemed to be getting right fond of that Goldman lug, and then the moment’s silence lengthened as his steps could be heard on the old wooden staircase.
    “Hullo, men.” His customary greeting. He glanced about the room, at the familiar faces; at Tommy with his legs drawn up as usual on the window seat; at Keith deep in the armchair before the fire; at Roger still