The Dutch, its paneling antiqued by the condensation from breaths of generations of adolescent alcoholics, was packed and noisy, and in almost every hand was the drink fashionable that season, benedictine and Pluto water, with a sprig of mint.
Doctor Roseberry was cheered and toasted by the children as he entered. He grinned, and colored becomingly, and inwardly demanded of himself and history, "What the hell these baby engineers got to do'th me, for chrissakes?" He pushed his way through the crowd, which claimed him for reasons not at all clear, to a dark corner booth, where Purdy and McCloud, the linemen whom he intended to sell to Harvard, were nursing the one beer a night apiece permitted during training. They were talking quietly, but darkly, and, as Doctor Roseberry approached, they looked up, but didn't smile.
"Evenin' boys," said Doctor Roseberry, sitting down on the small ledge not occupied by McCloud's backside, and keeping his eyes on the door through which Buck Young would be coming.
They nodded, and went on with their conversation. "No reason," said McCloud, "why a man can't play college ball till he's forty, if he takes good care of hisself." McCloud was thirty-six.
"Sure," said Purdy gravely, "a older man's got a certain matoority you don't find in the young ones." Purdy was thirty-seven.
"Look at Moskowitz," said McCloud.
"Yup. Forty-three, and still goin' strong. No reason why he shou'n't keep goin' until he's fifty. No reason why most men shou'n't."
"Bet I could go to the Reeks and Wrecks now and put together a Ivy League championship team out of guys past forty who're s'posed to be through."
"Planck," said Purdy. "Poznitsky."
"McCarren," said McCloud, "Mirro, Mellon. Ain't that right, Doc?" McCloud asked Roseberry the question casually.
"Yup, guess so. Hope so. Better. Kind of outfit I've got to work with."
"Um," said McCloud. He stared down into his beer, finished it off with a flourish, and looked plaintively at Roseberry. "O.K. if I have one more short one tonight?"
"Sure - why the hell not?" said Roseberry. "I'll even buy it."
McCloud and Purdy looked distressed at this, and both, on second thought, figured they'd better keep in good shape for the important Big Red season ahead.
Roseberry offered no reply to this clumsy gambit.
"Better not hit that stuff too hard," said a leering student, pointing to the two bottles of beer. "Not if Cornell's going to go on ruling the Ivy League, you better not, boys."
Purdy glowered at him, and the youngster retreated into the crowd. "One minute, they ask you should go out and bust both arms and legs so's they can say how tough Cornell is. Then the next minute, they want you should live like a goddam missionary," said Purdy bitterly.
"Like in the Army," said McCloud.
The subject reminded Doctor Roseberry of the letter and the memo he'd been reading in his office, and he patted his breast pocket to make sure he still had them.
"Like in the Army," said Purdy, "only no pension."
"Sure, give the best years of your life to some college, and what the hell they do when you're through? Toss you right into the Reeks and Wrecks. The hell with you, buddy."
"Look at Kisco," said Purdy.
"Died for dear old Rutgers, and his widow's got what?"
"Nuttin'! Nuttin' but a chenille R she can use as a bath mat, and a government pension."
"Shoulda saved his money!" said Doctor Roseberry impatiently. "He was makin' more'n the college president. How come he was so poor? Whose fault that?"
Purdy and McCloud looked down at their big hands and fidgeted. Both of them, in their prime, had made as much as the late Buddy Kisco, who had actually died for Rutgers. But both were likewise broke - forever broke, building flamboyant mansions in Cayuga Heights, buying new cars every six months, dressing expensively. . . .
"That's the thing," said McCloud plaintively. "A athalete has to keep up appearances. Sure, people think a athalete makes plenty, and he do on paper. But people never stop to think he's allus gotta keep up a expensive front."
Purdy leaned forward in excited agreement. "For who?" he demanded rhetorically. "For the athalete?"
"For Cornell!" said McCloud.
"Damn right!" said Purdy, leaning back, satisfied.
Buck Young, tall, massive, shy, appeared in the doorway and looked around the room. Doctor Roseberry stood and waved, and left Purdy and McCloud to join him at the door.
"Bucky boy!"
"Doc." Buck seemed somewhat ashamed to be seen with the coach, and looked hopefully at a vacant booth. He was behaving as though he were keeping an appointment with a dope peddler, and, in a way, Doctor Roseberry reflected cheerfully, he was.
"Buck, I'm not going to waste any words, because there isn't much time. This offer won't be open many more days. Maybe it'll be off tomorrow. It's all up to the alumni," he lied.
"Uh-huh," said Buck.
"I'm prepared to offer you thirty thousand, Buck, six hundred a week, all year round, startin' tomorrow. What do you say?"
Young's Adam's apple bobbed. He cleared his throat. "Every week?" he asked faintly.
"That's how much we think of you, boy. Don't sell yourself short."
"And I could study, too? You'd give me time off for classes and study?"
Roseberry frowned. "Well - there's some pretty stiff rulings about that. You can't play college football, and go to school. They tried that once, and you know what a silly mess that was."
Buck ran his blunt fingers through his hair. "Golly, I dunno. That's a lot of money, but my family'd be awful surprised and disappointed. I mean -"
"I'm not askin' it for me, Buck! Think of your schoolmates. You want them to lose a game this year?"
"No," he murmured.
"Thirty-five grand, Buck."
"Jesus, I -"
"I have heard every word you've said," said a young redhead thickly. He wasn't drinking benedictine and Pluto water, but sloshed instead a puddle of whisky and water on the table as he sat down by Buck, facing Doctor Roseberry, uninvited. Beneath his open-necked shirt the red of a Meadows T-shirt showed plainly. "Heard it all," he said, and he laid his hand on Buck's shoulder gravely. "Here you are at a crossroads, my boy. You're lucky. Not many crossroads left for people. Nothing but one-way streets with cliffs on both sides."
"Who the hell are you?" said Doctor Roseberry irritably.
"Doctor, Doctor, mind you, Edmond L. Harrison of the Ithaca Works. Call me Ed, or pay me five dollars."
"Let's get away from this lush," said Doctor Roseberry.
Harrison banged on the table with his fist. "Hear me out!" He appealed to Buck, whose exit he blocked. "The eminent Doctor Roseberry represents one road, and I the other. I am you, if you continue on your present course, five years from now."
His eyes were half closed, and after the fashion of benign drunks he seemed on the verge of tears, so powerfully was he compelled to love and help others. "If you are good," he said, "and if you are thoughtful, a fractured pelvis on the gridiron will pain you less than a life of engineering and management. In that life, believe me, the thoughtful, the sensitive, those who can recognize the ridiculous, die a thousand deaths."
Doctor Roseberry leaned back and folded his hands across his flat, hard belly. If he'd thought of it, he would have hired a professional actor to do what Doctor Harrison was doing for nothing. "How do you mean?" he asked helpfully.
"The best man I knew at the Meadows - "
"The Meadows?" said Buck in awe.
"The Meadows," said Harrison, "where the men at the head of the procession of civilization demonstrate in private that they are ten-year-olds at heart, that they haven't the vaguest notion of what they're doing to the world."