“I don’t know whether my plan is good for as much as twenty-one dollars,” responded Lanny dubiously. “I think we may be able to get, say, fifteen, though. The reason I wouldn’t say what it was the other night was that I had to consult others about it first; our Head Coach, for one.”
“Cut out the prologue, Lanny,” advised Gordon. “What’s the scheme?”
“Well, they’ve got a sort of football team across the river called the North Side Athletics. The fellows are mill operatives and that chap Danny Shores, who played ball with us last Summer the time Jack Tappen was suspended, is captain. I met him a week or so ago at the post office and he told me about it. Said they’d like to play us some time. I told him I was sorry, but that our dates were all filled. But it occurred to me the other night that the fellows over there would pay ten or fifteen cents willingly to see their team play the High School, and there are a lot of them, you know. So I thought it would be a good scheme to arrange a game with them a week from Saturday. We go away that day to play Corwin, you know. Saturday’s the only day they have to play. I saw Danny Shores yesterday and he’s tickled to death about it. I had to tell him why we wanted to charge admission, but he promised not to say anything about it. They’re so crazy to play that they don’t want any part of the gate receipts, and Danny says we can get three or four hundred people. What do you think of it?”
Morris and Gordon looked puzzled, and the latter asked: “But how the dickens can we play Danny’s team here if we’re going away to play Corwin the same afternoon?”
“Oh, I meant to explain that we’d play the Scrubs against them; call them the High School Second Team, you know.”
“I think it will be perfectly dandy!” exclaimed Louise.
“I shall go and see it,” declared Nell firmly.
“Don’t see,” said Morris, “why you can’t get a pretty good crowd to it. Not many of the fellows will go with the team to Corwin, I guess, and they’ll be glad of a chance to see a game. How much are you going to charge, Lanny?”
“Dick and I thought ten cents apiece would be enough. If we got two hundred we’d make twenty dollars. But I don’t believe we’d get more than a hundred and fifty. Still, that would mean fifteen dollars, and maybe we’ll find a way of making up the other five.”
“Pshaw,” said Gordon, “there’ll be easily two hundred there! And I think they’ll pay fifteen cents as quick as ten.”