Westby had been playing a streaky game on the First Corinthians; on some
days he was as brilliant a runner and tackler as there was in the
School, and on other days he would lose interest and miss everything.

If he was disappointed at the preference given to Dennison, he did not
show it; in fact, that he appeared on the list as substitute seemed to
fill him with elation. He had never taken football quite so seriously as
some of the others—as Collingwood and Dennison, for example; and
therefore only a moderate success in it was for him a matter of
gratification.

The training table was organized at once, but Westby was not admitted to
it. There was not room for the substitutes; they were expected to do
their own training. Westby was notoriously lax in that matter and had to
be nagged constantly by Collingwood, whom he found some pleasure in
teasing.

He would secure some forbidden article of food and ostentatiously appear
to be eating it with the greatest enjoyment until he caught
Collingwood’s eye; a large circular doughnut or a chocolate éclair
delicately poised between his thumb and finger were his favorite
instruments for torturing his captain’s peace of mind. He would contrive
to be seen just as he was on the point of taking the first bite; then he
would reluctantly lay the tidbit down.

“It’s a hard life, this being a near athlete,” he grumbled. “Sitting at
a table with a lot of uncongenial pups like you fellows.—Mr. Upton,
Blake’s kicking me; make him quit, sir.—Not allowed to eat half the
things the rest of you do, and not allowed either to get any of the
training-table grub. Well, I never did think of self, so I can endure it