I said it would. Then I asked Jim what he was going to do about it and he said glumly:
“I’m going to keep my mouth shut, and so are you. What he wants is for us to find out we’ve been fooled, so he can have the laugh on us. Nothing doing! If he wants to come out as the Great Peck he can do his own announcing. Then I’ll tell him I knew it all along, and the laugh will be on him, hang him!”
We chinned some more and then I left him. In a way, thought I, it was sort of mean of Peck to put it over on Jim like that, but at the same time it was funny, and I had to chuckle a bit now and then for the rest of the evening. It was a shame not to tell the other fellows, too, but Jim had made me promise to keep quiet and so I couldn’t. But I got some fun out of it, for the next afternoon I overhauled Harold going over to the field and I said to him:
“It’s funny, but you remind me an awful lot of that chap who played quarter for Elm Park last year. You look a lot like him around the eyes. And the lower part of his face, too. His name was the same as yours, you know.”
“Really?” he asked, most polite. “Elm Park is out near Chicago, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but the team came East last Fall for a post-season game. You said you weren’t related to him, didn’t you?”
“I don’t think I said just that,” replied the fox. “I’d hardly dare to. As a matter of fact, our family has relations in the West, although I’ve never heard that any of them lived in Chicago.”
I didn’t want to give the snap away, so I shut up then, but I couldn’t help admiring the way he carried it off. Never batted an eyelash! Some boy, Harold!