“Yes, but he can’t kick. I’ve a good mind to put Wraysford in the place. And yet he’s such a rattling steady ‘back’ I don’t like to move him.”
“Wraysford told me yesterday,” said Wren, “he wasn’t going to play.”
“What!” exclaimed Stansfield, starting up as if he had been shot. “Wraysford not going to play!”
“So he said,” replied Wren.
“Oh, this is a drop too much! Why ever not?”
“I don’t know. He’s been awfully down in the mouth lately; whether it is about the Nightingale, or—”
The captain gave a howl of rage.
“I wish that miserable brute of a Nightingale had been scragged, that I do! Everything’s stopped for the Nightingale! Who cares a button about the thing, I’d like to know? Wraysford can get dozens more of them after the football season’s over. Why, the Doctor gave out another scholarship to be gone in for directly after Christmas, only to-day. Can’t he go in for that?”
“So he will, I expect,” said Wren; “but I don’t fancy he’ll play, all the same, on Saturday.”
Stansfield groaned. “There go my two best men,” he said; “we may as well shut up shop and go in for croquet.”