“He did, but what’s a ‘pretty good game’ for a fellow who’s made the All-Scholastic?” asked Johnny witheringly. “Sure, ’tis no game at all. He has the height of a camel and the weight of a whale, and does he use either intelligently? He does not! I’m no football player, Grant—or should I be calling you General?—but I can see with half an eye, and that one shut, that the lad isn’t earning his salary.”
“He doesn’t get any,” laughed Leonard.
“I know, that was a figure of speech,” answered the other. “Though, by the same token, I’ll bet he’d take the salary if it was offered.”
“You mean—” Leonard stopped. Then he added: “Slim thinks you maybe made a mistake about Renneker that time.”
“I thought so myself,” responded Johnny. “But this afternoon I got Jimsy Carnochan to go to the game with me. Mind you, I said no word to him about Renneker or Ralston or any one else. I just wanted to see would he notice anything. Well, in the third quarter, when the play was close to where we were sitting, Jimsy said to me, ‘Who’s the big fellow there playing right guard?’ ‘On which team?’ I asked him. ‘On Alton.’ ‘His name’s Gordon Renneker.’ ‘Like fun,’ said Jimsy. ‘If it is my name’s Napoleon Bonaparte! Don’t you mind the fellow that played first base in New Haven last summer for the Maple Leaf team? I’ve forgotten his name, but ’twill come to me.’ ‘Ralston, do you mean?’ I asked him. ‘Ralston! That’s the guy! What’s he calling himself out of his name for now?’ ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘you’re mistaken. There’s a similarity, I’ll acknowledge, but this fellow is Gordon Renneker, a fine lad that got placed on the All-Scholastic Team last year.’ ‘Maybe he was placed on it, whatever it is,’ said Jimsy, ‘and he’s likewise placed in my memory, for the big piece of cheese caught me with my foot off the bag, and I’m not forgetting any guy that does that!’ Well, I told him that he couldn’t be certain, seeing that you’re always reading about people that look so much alike their own mothers can’t tell them apart, maybe; and I minded him of a moving picture play that was here no longer ago than last August where one man takes another man’s place in Parliament and no one knows any different. And finally I said to him: ‘Whatever you may be thinking, Jimsy, keep it to yourself, for if it turned out that you were mistaken you’d feel mighty small, what with getting an innocent fellow into trouble.’ So there’s no fear of Jimsy talking, General.”
Leonard looked perplexed. “It’s awfully funny,” he said finally. “Renneker isn’t at all the sort of fellow you’d think to find playing baseball for money. Look at the clothes he wears, and—and the impression he gives you. Why, he must have plenty of money, McGrath.”
“You’d think so. Still, I mind the time when I had all the good clothes I could get on my back and would have been glad of the chance of picking up a bit of money. Although,” added Johnny, “I don’t think I’d change my name to do it.”
“Well,” said Leonard, shaking his head in puzzlement, “I can’t get it. What’s troubling me, though, is this. Knowing what we do—or suspecting it, rather—ought we to tell some one? I mean Coach Cade or Rus Emerson or faculty.”
“I’m wondering that myself,” said Johnny, frowning. “Maybe it’s no business of mine, though, for I’m not connected with football—”
“What difference does that make?” Leonard demanded. “You’re an Alton fellow, aren’t you? If what you suspect about Gordon Renneker is true he ought not to be allowed to play for Alton, and as an Alton student—”