“No, but I’ll bet he’d look a lot like Lantwood!”
“I won’t bet with you. Guess I’ll go over and see what sort of a handicap they’re giving me for the mile.”
“Don’t you know?” demanded Tom incredulously. Stuart shook his head. “Well, you surely are taking a big interest in this business! Are you quite sure you’ve got your name down?”
Stuart grinned. “Why anticipate trouble, old son?” he asked. “It’s bound to turn out that they haven’t given me more than half the handicap I ought to have.”
“Now,” answered the other approvingly, “you sound like a real ath-a-lete!”
“Thanks. Hope you cop your sprints, Tom. What do you think?”
“Guess I’ll get first in the two-twenty, with any sort of luck, but I’m not likely to do better than third in the other. Lowe has that cinched, and Bannister’s a bit better than me at the distance. I’m a rotten starter. Ernie always has two yards on me at the gun.”
“Well, there’s your call. Let’s see you beat the bunch, Tom.”
Tom’s prediction regarding the 220-yard dash proved correct, for he finished well ahead of the other three men, but, later in the afternoon, he was proved to be slightly wrong as to the short sprint. Instead of finishing third behind Ernest Lowe and Bannister, he finished second, with Bannister ahead and Lowe behind. For once, as he confided to Stuart afterwards, he had beaten Ernie away from the mark, and his satisfaction over that achievement far exceeded his pleasure in winning the two-twenty! But Tom Hanson was not the only contestant of the afternoon who succeeded in accomplishing the unexpected.