"Do you think yourself that Drayne is fit?" demanded Hazelton.
"He's the fittest man we have that can play left end," retorted
Wadleigh.
"Knocking, are you?" demanded Drayne, coming up behind them.
"Nice fellows you are!"
"Oh, now, see here, Drayne, no bad blood," urged Wadleigh. He spoke authoritatively, yet coaxingly, too. "Remember, we've got to keep all our energies for one thing today."
"Well, I'm mighty glad you two don't play on my end of the line," sneered Drayne, looking at Hazelton and Holmes with undisguised hostility.
"Cut it, Drayne. And don't you two talk back, either," warned
Wadleigh sternly.
"Oh, acknowledge the corn, Drayne," broke in Hudson, with what he meant for good humor. "Just say you're no good and let it go at that."
There was a dead silence, for an instant, broken by one unidentified fellow, muttering in a voice that sounded like a roar in the silence:
"Drayne? Humph!"
"There you go! That's what all of you are saying to yourselves!"
cried Drayne angrily. "For some reason you idiots seem to think
I'm in no shape today. Hang it, I'm sorry I agreed to play.
For two cents I wouldn't play."