The faces around that room were a sight! Hanson and Garrity looked like Venusian bunny-men in a carrot patch; those of us who acknowledged the Academy as our Alma Mammy would have soured milk with our smiles. The expression on Lancelot Biggs' face defied description. He looked faintly startled, faintly pleased, like a man shouting echoes against a mountainside.
Cap Hanson groped in his hip pocket; brought forth a wad of hoarded Earth and Venus credits.
"Well, you broken-down Wranglers—any of you like to lay a few creds on your team making a come-back?"
He got plenty of takers. After all, one touchdown isn't a football game, and the Wranglers were favored to win. I shelled out to the extent of thirty credits, Todd staked a few. Chief Garrity unbuttoned his ancient wallet, shooed away the moths, and risked some of his own credits after demanding three to one odds.
And the game went on.
The first quarter ended, amazingly, with Rocketeers still leading by that score of 7-0. In the second quarter, Cap Hanson, overflowing with the milk of human I-told-you-so, turned to Lancelot Biggs, crowed tauntingly,
"Well, Mister Biggs, I take notice you're careful not to lay any bets on that team of your'n?"
Biggs, whose eyes had been fastened hungrily on a girl in that room—guess which one!—gulped, and his neck-elevator bobbled. He said, almost embarrassedly,
"I—I don't know whether I should, Captain—"
Hanson snorted. "Just what I might have expected of a Wrangler. Well—"