“Are you sure you’re right, Bent?” asked the doctor’s son, earnestly. “Perhaps they’re not going to drop you; they may mean to give you another position.”
“Not on your life! When I tumbled to the game, I just demanded to know what Sterndale meant to do, and I forced him to declare himself.”
“How? What did he say?”
“Why, he said he’d keep me if Carter did not prove to be a better man. As if he thought I’d stand that!”
“What did you do?”
“I told him just what I thought about it. I gave him a piece of my mind, and don’t you forget it! I told him I was done with his old football team the moment he dropped me off to give Carter or any other fellow a trial in my position. I tell you, I was mad! Then I got out and left them to do anything they liked. Now that you’re not going on the team, Scott, I don’t believe I care a rap about playing with that gang.”
Leon made this final declaration in a manner which seemed to indicate that he regarded Don as his particular friend, for which reason, as Don had been treated shabbily, he was more than willing to withdraw from the eleven.
As he crouched behind the bushes near the football field, Don had heard Chatterton speak of somebody as being angry enough to do almost anything, and the listening lad then fancied the stammerer was referring to him; but now it seemed possible that quite another person had been the subject of the remark.
“I had a talk with Chatterton a while ago,” Leon went on, “and I tried to pump him about Sterndale’s intention in regard to me, but he pretended not to know what the fellow is going to do. But, say! he told me something that pretty near took my wind. You can’t guess what happened last night.”
“I won’t try to guess. What did happen?”