“That’s right,” exclaimed Stanley joyfully. “This is movie night! Oh, you Douglas Hart! Oh, you Bill Fairbanks! So long, Sid!”
[CHAPTER XI]
WARDEN ADVISES
The shake-up predicted by Sid didn’t come, although several experimental changes were tried in the line-up the next week. Dick learned from Cardin that Coach Driscoll had taken a large share of the responsibility for that defeat, declaring that he should have supplied the team with a better defence for the one-man pass. Dick and Cardin had taken to each other and, during scrimmage when Stone was running the First Team against the Second, usually sat together on the bench. In a measure they were rivals, but Cardin was second-choice quarter and Dick—well, Dick was so far down on the list that his number didn’t matter. Stone, Cardin and Pryne were the quarters who would be depended on this season, and Dick sometimes wondered why he and two other aspirants were retained. But they were, at least until the Friday of that week. Then Dick alone remained and could flatter himself if he chose to with the title of fourth-string quarter-back! With the passing of the two superfluous quarters came the elimination of a half-dozen assorted candidates and the First Team was down to less than forty players.
It had been decided that Dick and Stanley, Blash and Rusty were to accompany the team to Phillipsburg on Saturday, and, when that day arrived, go they did. But they didn’t go together, for on Friday afternoon, after the players were back in the locker room in the gymnasium, Manager Whipple read the names of the thirty-one fellows who were to report at eleven the next forenoon, and lo, the list began in this surprising manner:
“Abbott, Abernathy, Banker, Bates——”
So Stanley, Blash and Rusty Crozier travelled to Phillipsburg in the twelve-ten accommodation, while Dick, one of a small army of players, coaches, trainers, rubbers and managers, departed in style at eleven-forty on the Springfield Express which, for that occasion only, was scheduled to stop at Phillipsburg at twelve-fifty-four. They walked to the station, each with his togs in a bag, and presented a fairly formidable army as they marched by twos and threes down School Street. Small boys stood spellbound in awed admiration and elderly citizens smiled or frowned according to their sympathies: for Warne is still a somewhat old-fashioned town and there were still those who looked with disfavour on the rude sport of football.
At the station Billy Goode and his assistants were waiting beside a baggage truck piled high with paraphernalia, and the assistant manager, who, as he would become manager next year, must learn his trade by serving an apprenticeship to which fell the hard work, was standing nearby importantly frowning over an envelope full of round-trip tickets. He had counted the contents of the envelope three times and had got a different result with each count. Stearns Whipple relieved him of further responsibility by pocketing the tickets uncounted while the assistant dug up the balance of the eighty dollars entrusted to him. The express came in twelve minutes late—being late was a long-standing habit of the express—and they piled aboard. Seats were few and Dick was among the dozen or more who were forced to stand or sit on their up-ended suit-cases in the aisle. At the first stop after Warne, however, Dick and Warden were lucky enough to fall heirs to the seat of an elderly couple nearby who for twenty minutes had displayed intense bewilderment over the somewhat boisterous horde of boys who had invaded the car. Dick thought he read intense relief on the prim countenance of the old lady as she left.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Driscoll used you today, Bates,” said Warden when they were speeding on again. “I have an idea that it’s been decided to put in a practically fresh line-up in the second half. No one cares an awful lot whether we win from Phillipsburg, and it’s about time some of the second-string fellows got a good tryout.”