He appeared to derive a lot of satisfaction from the phrase, and Bert heard him mutter it over again to himself as he felt his way into the room and sat on the foot of Hugh’s bed.
“No,” he said, tucking his feet up out of the draft from the open window, “no, that’s not true. You play just as good a game as I ever did, Hugh. You can’t get around that. And what’s a heap more, you’re steady. I never was. I’d play good enough one day and then be perfectly rotten the next, maybe. What gets me, though, is how the dickens you ever learned in only about eight weeks!”
“Oh, I don’t know. And, anyhow, that’s got nothing to do with it. I never imagined that I’d get in your way, Bert. If I had I’d never have gone in for the silly game. Now look what’s happened!”
“Well, what has happened? I’m out and you’re in because you deserve to be. Besides, there’s another year coming, isn’t there? Football doesn’t stop after Saturday, you know.”
“That’s taking it mighty well,” said Hugh warmly. “But—just the same I don’t like it. It makes me feel an awful rotter, an out-and-out rotter, old chap! If there was any way to—to—to back out——”
“Don’t be a chump! There isn’t, and if there was you’d have no right——”
“Why not? I know there isn’t, of course, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the say about playing. Of course I can’t go to Mr. Bonner and say ‘Look here, you know, I’ve changed my silly mind and don’t think I’ll play Saturday.’ That wouldn’t do, of course. But, just the same, it’s tommyrot to say I haven’t the right, you know.”
“You haven’t,” declared Bert decidedly. “The team needs you and it’s up to you to do your level best.”
“My level best is no better than yours, though; not so good, in fact. How do you know that I won’t have stage-fright Saturday and drop the ball or—or try to swallow it? You can’t make me believe that if something happened so I couldn’t play you wouldn’t do just as well and probably better than I would!”
“I don’t know what I’d do,” answered Bert thoughtfully. “Yes, I do, though, old man. I’ve got a perfectly magnificent hunch that I’d play good ball if I got a chance. But that’s got nothing to do with it. I shan’t have the chance unless Bonner puts me in for a little while at the end. He probably will, you know; after we’ve got the thing cinched or we’re so far behind that nothing matters!”