“Absolutely, but when it is your brother that doesn’t count much with you.”
“It ought to,” muttered Leonard.
“Possibly, but it doesn’t. As for to-morrow’s game, Grant, I’m absolutely sincere when I say that I believe you will do just as well as I’d have done.”
“That’s nonsense,” Leonard protested.
“No, it isn’t, really. I haven’t been playing much of a game this fall. I’ve just managed to keep my position, and that’s about all. Johnny Cade has been on the point of dropping me into the subs lots of times. I’ve seen it and I’ve had to act haughty and pull a bluff to keep him from doing it.”
“That’s all right,” persisted the younger boy doggedly, “but you say yourself that was because this business was hanging over you. Well, it isn’t hanging over you any longer, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t play to-morrow as well as you’ve ever played. Now, isn’t that so?”
“My dear chap,” replied Renneker, smoothly evasive, “you ought to be a prosecuting attorney or something. I say, what time is it getting to be? You fellows are supposed to be in hall by nine-thirty.”
“It isn’t that yet,” answered Leonard. But he slid down from the fence and fell into step beside the other. He tried very hard to think of something that would persuade Renneker out of this pig-headed, idiotic course. He grudgingly admired the big fellow for what he had done. It was chivalrous and generous and all that sort of thing, this business of being the goat for Brother George, but Leonard didn’t know Brother George and he couldn’t summon any sympathy for him. When he did speak again they were well up the broad path to Academy Hall, and what he said wasn’t at all what he had sought for.
“I do wish you’d think this over to-night, Renneker,” he pleaded.