"Has something to do with it."
"Too bad! It was tough to be knocked out just before the game, but you can feel satisfied that your place was filled by a good man."
Marline seemed to turn yellow.
"That is it, sah—that's just it!" he exclaimed, "Look at all the stuff in the papers about him! And I might have had the opportunities he had if I had played."
"Perhaps not."
"Why not?"
"The change might have made considerable difference in the play. You know as well as I, no two men will play just the same under the same circumstances. They may attempt similar plays, but they do not carry them out in precisely the same manner."
"I don't like the way you use that word 'attempt,' sah!" said Marline, flaming up a bit. "It seems like an insinuation that I might have failed in the attempt, while Merriwell succeeded."
"You are altogether too suspicious and sensitive, Marline. I did not hint anything of the sort, although even you cannot be sure you would have succeeded as well as Merriwell. Indeed, what he did in that game was phenomenal."
"Rot, sah!"