“That’s all right. You can be sarcastic if you like, but I’m talking horse-sense. You see a lot of things from the bench that you don’t see from the stand. Besides, you’ve got to know football to understand it. Now you take—”
“I beg your pardon! Did you say anything about understanding football?”
“Well, I understand a lot more about it than you do,” replied the other, warmly. “I’ve been playing it a week, haven’t I?”
“Sure, but I’ll bet you don’t know how much a safety counts!”
“I don’t need to. That’s up to the referee. But I know some football, just the same. And I punted forty-seven yards yesterday, too!”
“In how many punts?” inquired Laurie, innocently.
Ned threw a book at him and the subject was closed.
In his own line, baseball, Laurie was not setting the world on fire. He was gaining a familiarity with the position of center fielder on the scrub nine, and batting practice was at least not doing him any harm. But he certainly had displayed no remarkable ability; and if Ned had gained a notion to the contrary, it was merely because it pleased Laurie to fool him with accounts of imaginary incidents in which he, Laurie, had shone most brilliantly. As Ned knew even less about baseball than he had known of football, almost any fairy-tale “went” with him, and Laurie derived much amusement thereby; decidedly more, in fact, than he derived from playing!
On Monday morning Laurie dragged Ned over to the Widow Deane’s for ginger-ale, professing a painful thirst. The Widow greeted them pleasantly, recalling their names, and provided them with the requested beverage. Laurie’s thirst seemed to have passed, for he had difficulty in consuming his portion. When, presently, he asked politely about Polly, it developed that that young lady was quite well enough to attend high school as usual. Laurie said, “Oh!” and silently promised himself that the next time he got thirsty it would be in the afternoon. Ned ate two doughnuts and was hesitating over raspberry tarts when Laurie dragged him away. “Can’t you think of anything but eating?” demanded the latter, disgustedly. Ned only blinked.
“Ginger-ale always makes me hungry,” he explained calmly.