“You wait and see.”
“Get out, you old raven!” laughed Harry.
Hansel didn’t much think the white sweater would ever come into his possession, himself, but there’s nothing to be gained by acknowledging defeat beforehand, and, besides, he felt rather hopeful and pleased this evening. In the first place, if Phin and he had accomplished no more they had at least stirred things up, for all day long the chief subject of discussion among the students of Beechcroft Academy had been the mass meeting and the status of the star half back. And, in the second place, Hansel had suffered public martyrdom, and there’s nothing like martyrdom to bolster up one’s self-respect and increase one’s self-importance. When he had reached the green that afternoon he had quickly noticed a difference in the attitude of the other members of the football team. It was not that they showed animosity, but they apparently viewed him distrustfully and seemed to avoid him as though he had suddenly become an outsider.
When the line-up for the short game came, Hansel found himself relegated to the position of right end on the second team. It was evident that Mr. Ames did not approve, and there followed a long discussion between him and Bert. But in the end the coach shrugged his shoulders as though persuaded, but not convinced, and Hansel went on to the second and played there all during the short practice. He was on his mettle, and the way he “made rings around Cutler,” to use the popular expression, was highly pleasing to his adherents, of whom there were not a few among the audience that followed the play. Hansel knew, and every other fellow there knew, that his banishment to the scrub team was in the nature of a public disgrace as punishment for siding against Cameron. If there had been any doubt in his mind on this point, it would have been speedily dispelled when he reached his room after his visit to Harry.
“Well,” asked Bert, who was getting himself ready for supper, “how do you like the scrub?”
“All right,” answered Hansel calmly.
“Glad you like it. For that’s where you’ll probably play. We can’t have fellows on the first eleven who are trying to get us beaten.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Bert,” replied Hansel. “I can take what’s coming to me. You won’t hear any kicking if I stay on the second from now until I leave school.”
“Well, you would stay there if I had my way,” growled Bert angrily.
At a few minutes after seven Phin and Hansel knocked on the door of Mr. Ames’s study on the first floor of Weeks. As soon as they were comfortably seated the coach plunged into his subject.