"No," replied the Gridley captain. "It's been tough on us, but you've done everything that I could have done. I'm satisfied, and I believe the coach is."
"We'll ask him," proposed Badger.
Morton was hurrying toward his boys. The coach's face was impassive. For all his looks showed he might have been congratulating himself on a winning.
"No; there's no need to change captains," decided the coach. "It's like changing a horse in mid-stream. I don't see, Badger, that you're lost any tricks that Edgeworth could have made.
"What's our weak point?" asked Ben.
"There isn't much of a weak point, anywhere, as far as your play goes," Mr. Morton responded. "In many respects your play has been better than Cobber's. Weight is your poor point."
Nevertheless the coach made several suggestions in the time that was allowed him.
"Whenever you get a proper chance, Captain, and have the ball, open up the play as much as you can. Don't give Cobber a chance to bump you any when it can be avoided."
In the meantime the Cobber fans, as was their right, were hurling the most abusive cheers and taunts. Dick, as cheer-master, allowed this to pass until nearly the end of the intermission. At last he gave the sudden call through the megaphone:
"Twenty-three!"