“That’s so,” agreed Poke, “and we ought to stick together. I guess we’ll just have to read the riot act to Bull, Gil.”
Gil half-heartedly replied that he guessed something like that would have to be done and the conclave broke up, Jeffrey and Jim retiring across the hall to the former’s room in which Jim had formed the custom of studying.
The next afternoon he accompanied Gil and Poke to the gymnasium, rented a locker and struggled into his football togs which had grown strangely tight in the last year. Then, in the wake of half a hundred other fellows, they trotted down to the field and Jim sought Duncan Sargent. He found him conferring with Johnny and waited a few steps away until they finished talking. As it happened captain and coach were not telling secrets and so made no effort to talk quietly, and before Jim realized it he heard Sargent say:
“By the way, Johnny, I’ve got a new lineman coming out this afternoon; fellow named Hazard; big and rangy and looks good. Poke Endicott knows him and says he’s an all right player. I’ll hand him over to you and you give him a try with the second squad in scrimmage, will you? Let me know how he shapes up.”
“That’s good,” replied Johnny with enthusiasm. “We surely need better line material than we’ve got. There isn’t a promising substitute tackle in sight. Send him along to me and I’ll see what he can do.”
They strolled slowly away, still talking, leaving Jim a prey to varied emotions. He wanted to punch Poke for getting him into such a scrape. How could he go to Sargent now and say that it was all a mistake, that he really knew very little about the game and had only played as a sort of third or fourth substitute on his grammar school eleven? Why, it couldn’t be done! Rather than do that he would sneak back to the gymnasium, get his togs off and go home. He thought hard for a minute, while he followed the captain and trainer across the field. After all, he reflected presently, perhaps he could play fairly well if he had a chance. Why not accept the reputation that had been imposed upon him without his connivance and carry things off as best he could? After all, it wasn’t his fault, and if he disappointed them, why, he could get out. The situation required nerve and Jim had plenty of it when necessary. He smiled and made up his mind. They thought him an experienced player. Well, he would do his best to keep up the delusion. Let them find out for themselves that he was little more than a tyro, a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound bluff in a suit that threatened to rip at the seams every time he stretched his muscles!
He quickened his gait and overtook Duncan Sargent.
“What shall I do, Captain?” he asked quietly.