"No sign of 'em, Forge," he panted.
A pretty pickle, truly! Supporters aboard the train, guard fidgeting with his green flag, and two of the team's most important members missing. Was the replay, then, to be as persistently dogged by misfortune as the first final had been?
"Guard, can't you hold her up a bit?" Dick pleaded. "Give us a minute or two longer. We're two men short."
"Sorry, lad, but Ah might near as weel chuck myself under t'train. This company's pride is punctuality. They'd sack me if I spoilt t'record. Ready, there? Right away!"
He bundled Dick and Roger into the saloon carriage reserved for the team, and waved the train into motion. Gradually it gathered speed, and then a frantic shout arose from the watching Foxonians as Broome and Clowes came rushing at top speed past the booking-office.
"Hi, they're here—stop the train!"
Trains have been stopped, I believe, on less particular lines when important passengers have been a few seconds late. And who more important, the Foxes doubtless thought, than two of the men who were to fight St. Cuthbert's for the County Schools' Cup? But their hopeful cries changed into dismayed indignation as they realized that the old file of a guard had no intention of pulling up for Broome and Clowes—"No, not if they was royal princes," he vowed. Had he even extended a helping hand, the nimble Broome could have just boarded the guard's van. But the old man remained stubborn, and the team started on the last lap of its journey to Walsbridge minus two of its best men.
"Take a motor-car," Robin Arkness called back, "and charge it to me."
"Silly ass!" Osbody said. "There isn't anything better than a clothes-horse to ride in this benighted hole. We've lost the match!"
"Skittles!" cried Robin. "You Holbeck chaps make me sick. Just because two out of three of your rotten representatives think feeding their ugly faces more urgent than football, you fancy it's 'tails down' with Foxenby. Forge'll find substitutes for both, that's a cert. He's never been stuck fast yet."