"Well, it was a hard tackle," said Durant. "I don't blame you for dropping the ball."
Teeny-bits was about to make a reply when he saw coming toward them a white-haired man who walked with a limp. "There's Dad," he said, "I didn't know he was coming to the game."
Old Daniel Holbrook approached them with a beaming face. "Well, well, son!" he exclaimed, "I thought maybe you'd play, so I came to see the game."
Teeny-bits introduced Durant and tried to smother a feeling of embarrassment, the source of which he would not have cared to probe.
"Your ma, Teeny-bits, wants you should come down for Sunday dinner to-morrow," said the station master, "and she's particular for you to bring a friend. I've killed two young roosters and ma's fixin' 'em up with the kind of stuffin' you like. Now if this friend of yours here would like to come down with you I'll drive up and get both of you in the morning after church. He looks as if he'd have a good appetite."
Teeny-bits expected to hear Neil Durant express courteous regret; he did not for a moment think that the son of Major-General Durant and the most popular member of Ridgley School would be interested in visiting the humble Holbrook home. He was even a little ashamed that Dad Holbrook had extended the invitation with so much genial assurance.
"I'll be mighty glad to come—if Teeny-bits wants me to," said Durant, and Teeny-bits looked at him with such a queer expression of surprise and pleasure that Neil added: "You didn't expect me to refuse an invitation like that, did you?"
At the steps of the locker building Durant left them, and Teeny-bits remained outside for a few minutes to talk to the station master. Then he said good-by and went inside to take his shower.
He found his team-mates discussing the game in detail and bestowing praise on Neil Durant.
"Well, cap'n, old scout," Ned Stillson was saying, as Teeny-bits came clamping in, "you sure were Johnny-on-the-spot."