“You could have saved us the ball both times if you’d only dropped quick enough!” Talbot remarked with undisguised frankness to Dunn, as the team walked moodily into the dressing rooms after the game.
“I couldn’t, really!” protested Dunn. “Once some one piled into me just as I was going to drop, and the other time I tried to pick it up because I had a clear field, and my foot slipped. It was the correct thing to do, wasn’t it, Harry?”
“I didn’t see,” answered the captain. “I thought you might have got Jefferson, though, on that crisscross.”
“The end blocked me off just as I was going to tackle. Eaton really ought to have taken him.”
“It’s your business not to be blocked off!” snapped Talbot.
“Shut up, Pete!” called the captain. “What’s the good of kicking now? None of us played well.”
“My playing was rotten, I know,” rejoined the pessimist, “but I don’t shirk the responsibility for it.”
“It takes time for a team to get shaken together,” said Dunn. “We’ll all do better when we’ve had more practice.”
Dunn’s remark showed a forgiving and conciliatory spirit that by all the rules of story-book morality should have extracted from a contrite Talbot an apology; but the surly half-back went his way unappeased.