“Only a small kid looking at a helmet. He may be back. I tried to sell him one of the cheap ones, but he wouldn’t have it. Well, I’ll run along, Stick.”
“All right.” Stick seated himself behind the counter near the window, leaned his chair back and opened his book. “Say, Rus, how much longer do you think we can hold out if we don’t do any more business than we’ve been doing?”
Russell stopped at the door and leaned across to speak in a voice so lowered that it would not reach the rather prominent ears of Mr. J. Warren Pulsifer. “About three weeks, Stick,” he said soberly. “But we’re going to begin to sell things long before that, so don’t get the crêpe out yet. You wait and see, Stick!”
“I’ll wait, all right,” grumbled Stick as the other hurried out, “but I’m sure of one thing, and that is I wish I’d never let him get me into this blamed partnership!”
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE SECOND TEAM COACH
“Want to try a good ball, Mart?” asked Jimmy that afternoon while the candidates were assembling for practice.
Mart Proctor accepted the pigskin and looked it over critically. “Where’d you get it, Jimmy?” he inquired. Jimmy explained and Captain Proctor dropped the ball to the ground, caught it on the rise, balanced it in his right hand, tried it in his left and then fell to a careful inspection of the seams.
“Looks good,” he commented.