"You've got to bring us luck," said Owen.
"Oh, I will," returned the boy, "but you don't need it. You're going to win anyway. I've got my red fire all ready."
"I wish I felt as he does," said Poole, as the boy scampered across the street to inform his friends of his good fortune.
"I do," replied Owen, promptly.
AS WALLY SAW IT
Proud as a king, and happy as a king rarely is, Wally sat on the players' bench and stared at the throngs pouring in through the entrances and flooding the seats. On the fence over by the woods, like sparrows crowded close on a telegraph wire, was strung a line of twittering and jostling youngsters, let in by a wise manager who preferred to have them safely quiet inside rather than uproariously disorderly without. And every one of the shrill flock sooner or later fastened his eyes on Wally and demanded the reason for their comrade's elevation to the company of the gods.
Such a question must, of course, be answered. Whether the answer is correct or not is of minor consequence. Some said Wally was a mascot; others that Poole was sweet on his sister; while still others were able to give melodramatic accounts of Wally's rescue of the captain from the desperate gang of upper middlers who had "pinched" him. While the argument on these points was going forward, the advance scouts of the fence brigade discovered signs of the arrival of the nines, and Skinny Flick, waving his tattered cap, led a high-pitched imitation of the long Seaton cheer, weirdly shrill and yet true and even and united.