“I’d be laid flat if I ran into Ted Trafford or Pop, though,” laughed Hugh. “Pop could take me up and throw me clear over the goal. I fancy end is my place, if I can get it.”
Nick was equally pleased and, like Bert, seemed to think that fortune had been unusually kind to Hugh. “But you’re a lucky guy, anyway, Duke. Some fellows are born to good fortune, I guess, and you’re one of them. That was nice of Smiles, though, wasn’t it? Don’t you like him, Hugh?”
“Very much. We had a topping time. And, I say, you chaps, he knows an awful lot of football!”
Bert and Nick laughed. “Why shouldn’t he?” asked Bert. “He played it for three or four years and came near making the all-America team, didn’t he, Nick?”
“So they say. Anyway, I’ll bet he was a dandy guard. When he first came here he used to help with the coaching. That was before Dinny came.”
“And after. Dinny didn’t coach the elevens until the first fall we were here.”
“I didn’t know that. I thought Dinny was always a football coach.”
“No, they got him because Pete had too much to do. Dinny was supposed to give all his time to the track team and nine. Then they got Davy to look after the track fellows and so Dinny took hold of the second team.”
“I should think that Mr. Smiley would be a ripping football coach,” said Hugh.