“Oh, I’ll be all right, sir,” answered Dan impatiently.
“Of course. Well, let’s talk about to-morrow if you have time. I suppose we’ll have to go through the motions of practice for the sake of the school, eh?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Dan. “They’re going to march down to the field as usual and shout themselves hoarse. There was some talk of having the band up.”
“Well, we’ll call practice for four o’clock then. That’ll give us fifteen or twenty minutes of it. And that reminds me.” He took out a memorandum book and made a note in it. “I’m going to have Fogg and Girard go down early and practice passing to Simms and Holmes. Fogg was a bit ragged Saturday.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Dan. “And Norton ought to have a good half hour at goal practice.”
“We’ll have him try a few kicks, Vinton, but I don’t want to shove him too hard. We’ve got the fellows just about on edge and some of them, fellows like Norton, are likely to go over if we push them too much. But I guess a couple of dozen drop-kicks won’t hurt him. I hope, though, that we won’t have to rely on Norton to score. I think that by next fall he will be a pretty good drop-kicker, if he’s willing to keep at it and practice.”
“I wish he could do it now,” said Dan bitterly. “With all the fellows in this school it certainly seems as if there might be one able to lift the ball over the goal once out of ten times!”
“It does seem so, and that’s a fact,” Mr. Payson agreed. “I don’t believe I ever knew of a team so weak in the kicking department of the game. It’s largely my fault, of course, but I had no idea that Hammel was going to peter out as he has. Last year he was full of promise. However, we’re no worse off than Broadwood. And I daresay that if we get the ball within field goal distance we can shove it over by rushing.”
“We’ll have to,” said Dan dryly.
“I’m afraid so. Well, Cowles is coming down to see me this evening and I’ll have to go on. By the way, Vinton, how would you like to take a vacation to-morrow?”