“It’s better than I thought it would be,” chuckled Rob as they pushed their way through the throng at the door. “A long ways eighty dollars will take them!”
“What do you suppose they’ll do?” asked Evan.
“I guess they’ll go broke. Probably make their last year’s uniforms do instead of getting new ones. It’s all nonsense, anyway, for Prentiss to say that they have to have a hundred and fifty dollars. A good manager could get along with not much more than half of that. I guess they’ll have to this year.”
“Oh, they’ll probably call another meeting,” said Malcolm, “or send around canvassers to get after the fellows who haven’t contributed.”
“They don’t know who have contributed and who haven’t,” said Rob, “aside from those who signed their names to pledges. All a fellow would have to do when a canvasser tackled him would be to say that he gave cash at the meeting to-night.”
“That’s so,” Malcolm agreed.
“I sort of wish I’d given another dollar,” mused Evan. “I’d like to see the team wallop Adams, and if they need money to be able to do that it seems as though they ought to have it.”
“It isn’t money they need,” said Rob, “but some good players, a decent captain and manager and somebody to show them football. If Hop would engage a coach he could get all the money he needed, and more too. The trouble with those two chaps is that they’ve got it into their heads that they are the Riverport Football Team. They want to do it all themselves. Even if Hop got a coach he’d be always interfering and I guess Mr. Coach would stay about one week. Then he’d kick Hop and get out.”
“This is Hopkins’ last year, isn’t it?” Evan asked.