"Right, 'Body, old son," answered Niblo. "I lost my head, but they're all on top of me. Can't you go to your old place and draw them off me a bit?"
"Good idea, Niblo. I'll feel more at home at centre-half, putting a spoke in Arkness's wheel."
Grain watched the change with cynical approval. "Time you came to give me a hand," he said. "The Professor's no more use behind me than a draughty keyhole."
"Have a pot at goal whenever you can, Grain. We must get a chalk or two, or it'll be 'thirty—nil' on the hall notice-board."
Between them they managed to get a move on, juggling the ball into the Merry Men's penalty-area by deft touches which won applause. Osbody was then in a splendid scoring position, and ought to have shot without hesitation. Probably wishing, however, to put Grain in a better temper, he unselfishly gave his grumbling colleague the ball, saying to him: "Let fly first time, Grain."
It was what is known as a gift-goal. The Merry Men's custodian had slipped and fallen, and Grain had only to lift the ball gently into the net. But the excitement of the moment must have unnerved him, for instead of shooting he trod on the ball, which flew up and hit him in the face.
The next moment, to the accompaniment of a loud roar of laughter, he had sprawled full length in the mud.
There was mud on this particular patch of the field, too. It was facetiously called the "Nigger Pond", because on most days a pool of black water was present there.
If Grain had been in the habit of practising more he would have remembered this patch and kept clear of it. But now he was wholly in it from head to foot, sending a fountain of black drops over Osbody also, and (what was worse still from his captain's standpoint) spoiling all chance of a score by accidentally fisting the ball over the goal-line.
When, at last, he managed to raise himself dolefully to his feet, who was there on the field who could have refrained from grinning at him? Black he was, but not in any way comely. His appearance was that of a golliwog too tightly stuffed with sawdust—an irresistibly comical sight.