“I’ll just sort of draw it over,” said Jim. He looked about for paper and, seeing none, thrust a hand into the inner pocket of his jacket.
“What do you want? Paper? Wait, there’s some here somewhere.” Mr. Cade started to rise but Jim had found what he was after. He always carried three or four old letters or similar documents and now he selected one and pulled out his fountain pen.
“This will do, sir,” he said. “Maybe if I can see that plan a minute—” Mr. Cade handed it to him and he made a hurried copy of it on the back of a folded letter. Then he began again, clearing his throat portentously. “You move your right guard and tackle to the other side, sir, and bring your left end over. That gives you two ends on the right of your line.” Mr. Cade nodded thoughtfully. “Your left half-back—or whoever stands behind the center—gets the ball on a direct pass and— Hold on, though, I forgot. First, this fellow here—”
“Let’s call them by name, Todd. Here’s Kinsey at the left, here’s Frost at the right, this is Tennyson behind Frost, and this is Whittier directly back of the center. All right. Now you were going to say that Tennyson—what?”
“He starts before the ball, sir, running to the left. That—that’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely, as long as he runs toward his goal-line as well as to the left. That is, a back may be moving when the ball is put in play so long as he is taking a course which at some time or other would cause him to intersect an extension of his own goal-line. Not very lucid, but go on.”
“Well, he runs to the left, passing behind Whittier and going over here.”
“Where is ‘over here,’ Todd?”
“I don’t know exactly, sir. I suppose about twelve yards back of the scrimmage line and maybe about five yards outside the end.” He looked questioningly across and the coach nodded again.
“Something that can be best determined by experiment, I fancy. Then what?”