"Don't get the wind up, chaps," he urged. "If I'm injured and carried off the field, you can pack the goal then. While I'm captain, you won't."
"But they've worn our backs to fiddle-strings—it's inhuman not to help the poor beggars out," protested Broome.
A grunt was the captain's only reply.
"Do you want Cuthbert's to score, Forge?" continued Broome.
It was an ungenerous speech, of which he was heartily ashamed a moment later. The captain winced as he replied:
"You're as bad as the rest, Broome. This is football—a game—a match—British sport. Backs defend goals—forwards shoot them. Yes, I want St. Cuthbert's to score—if they can!"
His sympathy for the defence in their gruelling was acute, but he shammed indifference to it. Let the Cup be lost or won, none should say afterwards that the Foxes saved their goal by playing one goalkeeper and ten backs. Finer to be a dozen goals behind at half-time than that!
"Good old Dick!" shouted Roger from the touch-line. "Stick to your game, old man!"
Dick turned a grateful face in the direction from which the voice came, and then ran back anxiously as a great yell of "Penalty, penalty!" came from the St. Cuthbert's players and spectators alike.
"What's happened, Clowes?" he said to the centre-half.