“You could say that of some others I know,” interposed Talbot, with a significant emphasis. Wilmot, however, showed no curiosity to learn who these others might be.
“Why can’t you get the other fellows’ signals right in the game?” he proposed, suddenly alert. “Four-eleven-forty-four!—right half-back outside left tackle. Two-eleven-twenty-three-six-million-and-six!—right half-back crawls between centre’s legs. Deduction: right half-back is eleven. Keep this up through the game, and you’ll have the whole system. You win by mental superiority—solve cryptograms on the run. Sherlock Holmes applied to football!”
Talbot smiled with complacent contempt. “That shows how much you know about football. You’re in the class with the person who wrote a football story that I read once in a weekly paper. The two elevens played the game, and after it was over and the one team had beaten the other, it was discovered that some one on the winning team had broken training before the game. The winners, therefore, forfeited the game to the losers.”
“No, seriously,” insisted Wilmot, “why couldn’t it be done?”
“Because it takes all your attention to play your game,” said Pete. “You can’t be puzzling out conundrums when you’re watching with all your soul to see the ball move. I suppose you’d have us call time to rub a leg, and sit down with a pencil and figure the thing out.”
“No, not that, but I should think a few of the old hands like you and Harry and Jimmy Eaton, and quick wits like McDowell—”
“McDowell stands ’way back on the defence, you idiot!” interrupted Pete. “He can’t even hear the other team’s signals!”
“Like somebody else, then,” continued Wilmot, unabashed by the compliment. “I should think a few fellows might each get a hint, and then all together would have enough to amount to something. What do you say, Harry?”
“It’s possible, but not worth while,” answered Harrison. “You’d lose in trying to do it more than you could gain by anything you could find out. The best way is to play a hard, safe game and be ready for whatever happens along. Come on, I want to go to bed!”
The school turned out in force for the game. Though hidden within lay the expectation of defeat, the older boys were assured that the team had a chance, and gathered gladly, the gambler’s hope in their hearts. To the younger ones the spectacle was in itself all-attractive, to say nothing of the joy of sharing the new responsibility of supporting a team which belonged to them. If some, in ignorance of their privilege, needed persuasion, there was Mike McKay to furnish it, through the potent influence of himself and his crowd. Two urchins of the sixth, who had guilelessly announced their intention of seeing the Harvard-Dartmouth game instead, were threatened by Mike with excommunication; he would cut them off, from that time on, from all help on lessons from their classmates, unless they performed their duty. They were ready in their places. Papas and mammas were there, everybody’s sister and her girl friends; and swarms of recent graduates from across the Charles, vigorous aids to school cheer-leaders and stayers-up of faint hearts. An extended line of autos was stalled along the fence. Nor were the Newburyites behind in the demonstration. It was confidence (a stronger force than hope) that swelled their numbers and gave vigor to their voices.