"It didn't rain any to speak of until long after the full game was over," said Hooker. "You should have stayed, Phil; they wanted you—bad—in the eighth. Eliot was simply tearing things up in his frenzy to find you."
"Why—why, what happened?" faltered Springer, a sickening feeling stealing over him. "Tut-tell me what ha-happened, Roy."
"The Porters got after Grant and bumped him to beat the band. Came within one tally of tying the score. If you'd been there Eliot would have shoved you in, and you'd had a chance to win all sorts of glory saving the game."
"Perhaps he would, and perhaps he wouldn't," muttered Phil.
"Oh, it's a dead sure thing he would have done it."
"How do you know?"
"Didn't I tell you he tried to find you! Why, he even sent for me; he was going to put me in."
"You?" breathed Springer incredulously.
"Yes, me; and I didn't have on a playing suit. If Grant hadn't managed to steady down at the last moment, I'd gone onto the slab. What made you skin out, Phil?"
After a few moments of silence, Springer forced himself by a great effort to speak: