“Great big snake?”
“Cut the comedy! One of these little gold footballs you wear on your watch chain!”
“Well?” I asked, not catching the idea.
“There was engraving on it and I read what it said. ‘E. P. H. S., 1917,’ Joe! What do you know about that?”
“Still I don’t get you. What’s E. P. S. stand for?”
“E. P. H. S., you dummy! Elm Park High School! Don’t you remember Sortwell telling about a fellow named Peck who’d played with Elm Park and asking Harold if he was any relation?”
“Oh!” said I. “Now I savvy! But, look here, Jim, you don’t think Harold’s this Elm Park star! Why, didn’t he say——”
“No, he didn’t,” answered Jim sourly. “He was mighty careful not to. He said maybe Peck was a distant relative or something. And he let me teach him how to play quarterback! Must have had lots of good laughs at me, eh? If I hadn’t been an utter idiot I’d have tumbled to the truth long ago. Why, no one could pick up the game the way he has! Look at the way he played to-day! He fooled the whole bunch of us, anyway. I wasn’t the only come-on. Only, why? What did he do it for?”
“Search me! But look here, what does he say? Has he fessed up?”
“He hasn’t said anything because I haven’t. How can I? Borrowing a chum’s collar stud is all right, but when you run across something you’re not supposed to know about you keep your mouth shut. If I told him I was helping myself to a stud and happened to see that gold football, what would he think? He’d think I’d been snooping, of course. But I don’t need to ask him. It’s as plain as a pike-staff. That football is one of those given to the members of last year’s victorious Elm Park team. I looked up the record. They played eleven games and won all but two. And Harold was quarterback and was a regular James H. Dandy. And now you know why I’m a trifle peeved, Joe. Wouldn’t it set you back some to find that you’d been teaching the fine points of football to last season’s All-Scholastic quarterback?”