Among those restless spirits who longed for some way to speed the minutes was Snubby Turner. He had gone down to the Hamilton Station and had come away not at all reassured by the sight that had met his eyes. The representatives of Jefferson School were a formidable looking lot, and it increased Snubby's peace of mind not at all to have had a close view of Norris' athletic form. He sensed a feeling of overflowing confidence in these big sons of Jefferson, and he longed to talk to some one who could dispel his doubts and drive away the insidious fears that were gnawing at what he called his "Ridgley spirit." In these circumstances he would have gone to Teeny-bits, or he might even have imposed upon the hospitality of Neil Durant,—if he had not known that loyalty to the school demanded that he should not bother any member of the eleven. He finally sought consolation by going down to the basement of Gannett Hall to pay a visit to old Jerry. He found the ancient janitor's assistant leaning back in a rickety chair reading by the light of an unshaded electric bulb. The old man put the volume down upon his knee and looked at Snubby with eyes that seemed to be gazing on distant scenes.
"What kind of book is that?" asked Snubby. "A novel?"
Old Jerry thrust his head forward slightly, as if seeing his visitor for the first time, and said:
"There's ijeers in this book, I wanter tell yer. It's about an awful smart feller who had ways of his own in gettin' at the bottom o' things—kind of a detecative chap."
Snubby looked at the title and saw that it was "The Mystery of the Million Dollar Diamond."
"It does a man good sometimes to exercise his brains on meesterious happenin's," said old Jerry, "and you know we got plenty o' reason to study up things o' that sort."
"Yes, we have; but I'm not half as much interested in that stuff just now as I am in the Jefferson game. Who do you think's going to win?"
Old Jerry laid the book carefully aside on his table, looked at his questioner seriously for a moment and said:
"I got my ijeers about that too, but it don't do no good to tell everythin' that is millin' aroun' in your head. Now I once heared of a feller who had a job forecastin' the weather for a noospaper, and he'd allus say right out positive whether it 'ud rain or shine—it was allus goin' to be bright and clear or dark and stormy—and along come a spell o' weather and every day for a week he said it was going to rain, and I'll be singed if there was a cloud in the sky all through them seven days—and the feller lost his job. Now the way I look at the game is this: we got a big chance to win and we got a big chance to lose, and if we do the things we oughter do it's goin' to be bright and fair, and if we do the things we hadn't oughter do it's goin' to be dark and stormy,—and I got my ijeers which is which. But, as I said, it don't do too much good to tell everythin' you know."
"It'll be an awful fight," said Snubby; "a terrible fight every single minute of the time, and I'll bet you two cents to a tin whistle that when that Jefferson crowd of heavy-weights gets through they'll know they've been playing somebody. I wish there were something I could do. I'm so doggone restless that I don't believe I'll sleep a wink to-night."