“Why can’t he, I’d like to know?”
“Because I’m going out for the Second to-morrow.”
“What! Honest? When—How——”
But Toby had closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER V
WITH THE SECOND
Of recent years the custom of having separate organizations for the First and Second Teams from the very outset of the season had obtained at Yardley. In the old days the Second was made up, perhaps a fortnight after the school year had started, of players who were not needed on the First and those who, for one reason or another, were ineligible for it. As a result, the Second as an adversary for the First, or School, Team, never amounted to much until the season was half gone. Under the new system the Second came into being two or three days after the start of the fall term, with a coaching staff, small but sufficient, of its own, a captain elected the preceding year and a general organization similar to that of the First save as to size. The coach was inevitably some enthusiastic and patriotic fellow who had recently graduated and who gave his services free. At times—whenever possible, in fact—he summoned other graduates to his assistance. If he was a wise coach, he never had more than one assistant at a time. If he was unwise, he had—and chaos reigned.
This year the coach was Mr. Burtis. Burtis had, in his time, been a remarkable half-back and an equally remarkable kicker, both in preparatory school and college. He had left college last spring and was, consequently, but twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. Because Yardley Hall history accorded him much fame as a player and leader, a great deal was expected of him. Toby’s first look at Kendall Burtis produced more surprise than anything else. He found himself wondering how any man could be as utterly homely as the coach and yet look as attractive, how any one could have so many angles in his body and yet be so free from awkwardness! Burtis was rather large, ruggedly built, square of frame. His mouth was broad, his nose somewhat pug, his hair nondescript in hue. Yet in spite of these things the face was pleasing and attractive. Perhaps the very dark gray eyes, clear and steady and honest, were accountable. Or it may be that the mouth expressed kindliness. At all events, after that first instant of surprise and confusion, Toby liked the new coach immensely. Whether the new coach liked Toby I can’t say. It is quite probable that he didn’t see him, for Toby was only one of some forty-eight fellows drawn up in a group on the edge of the second diamond that Saturday afternoon.