CHAPTER VIII.QUEEN'S MEETS BARROWS AT FOOTBALL.
In spite of Horton's appeal for good playing, the sample of football that the First team gave was anything but encouraging. The coach was all over the field, exhorting his charges to their best efforts, but their best efforts fell very far short of what he wanted.
After the kick-off, the First had made some good gains through the Second's Line. Then Dutton missed his signals and lost a lot of ground. He stood dumbly with the ball in his hands while the opposing tackle came ripping through the line, seized him around the waist, and ran him ten yards back towards his own goal before Dutton could yell "down."
"Isn't that the limit of all things?" said the Wee One to Frank. They were sitting together on the bleachers with a bunch of other critics, passing judgment on the playing, good and bad, as they saw it enacted before them. The Wee One was a critic of no mean calibre. "Isn't that the limit of all things? If they could only perform an operation on the thing that Dutton calls his head and get some grey matter from a jackass and insert it, he might possibly remember some of the signals,—at least such little ones as 'straight through the line,' which is about all he's good for anyway."
"Guess Horton's going to have apoplexy now, isn't he?" inquired Frank, as he watched the coach striding about among the players, shaking his clinched fists. But Horton recovered himself, and commanded another scrimmage. This time the First pulled itself together, and under the urgings of the quarter and the vigorous coaching of Horton, tore through the Second for great gains. It was fast and furious, slang, bang, up-and-at-it-again football, and the Second was retreating down the field, doing its best to hold its ground, but being swept aside by the rushes of the giant Dutton.
It was first down on the Second's ten-yard line, and it looked like a touchdown. The First was about to take revenge for the rebuffs the Second eleven had been giving them for several days.
"Now," shrilled Chip at the top of his lungs, "put it over. 16—32—11."