“Him—good!” he exclaimed sarcastically. “Take another guess, Rudie. Bah! The only thing that would do him good would be to have Harvard wipe up the field with us, and then he’d blame it on some one else. I’m sick of his high and mighty airs, and I tell you one thing, fellows, if he nags me to-morrow the way he did to-day there’ll be something doing.”
“That’s the way to talk!” Baulsir said approvingly. “What business had he got interfering with the quarter, anyhow?”
“He hasn’t any, if I show results,” retorted Kenny. “It’s all right to tell me what he wants before we start, but I can’t stand this nag, nag all through the playing. If he’s so crazy about deciding every play himself, why doesn’t he take my place?”
“I notice things went pretty well while Brad was at the helm,” Rose commented; “and he didn’t try any tricks like that. He played the game as it should be played, and not——”
“’Sh!” interrupted Keran. “Here they come.”
The thud of feet sounded on the turf outside, and a moment later the rest of the team appeared, filling the room with the sound of talk, argument, and discussion. The group by the window melted away, and Kenny made haste to appropriate one of the showers before they were all taken.
At the training table that night the football squad was not in the liveliest sort of humor. Kenny still retained symptoms of his grouch of the afternoon, and, besides that, there was a subtle undercurrent of discord which made itself felt insensibly.
Dick Merriwell noticed the symptoms at once. He had, in fact, realized for some days past that things were not as they should be with the team, and that afternoon he had quite expected an outburst from Kenny over the rather exacting ways of Tempest.
When it had not come, he was rather sorry, though he gave the quarter back full credit for his admirable self-control. An angry outbreak or open flare-up is much easier to contend with than the grudge which is nursed and fostered in secret, ever gaining in strength and volume like a snowball rolling downhill, until at length it proves a serious menace to discipline and effectiveness.
He had noticed Tempest’s methods of running the team and had observed with regret some of the mistakes the fellow made in handling the men. But he realized that it was Tempest’s way of doing things. It was as much a part of his make-up as his admirable executive ability, and quite as impossible to change.