“It must have been an accident; he hasn’t sand enough in him to do it purposely.” This was Stover’s opinion.
A furious but futile charge on the part of Marshall, a clumsy but energetic hanger-on of the second, drew the fire of the trio. “That’s the spirit!” chuckled Hargraves. “Dig up the dirt with your face, my boy! Football is the game!”
“There goes Mac!” cried a shrill voice close at hand.
“McDowell the infant wonder,” commented Stover, as the boy dropped sharply and cleanly on the ball, falling along knee, thigh, and hip, in one continuous and perfectly easy motion.
“What’s the sense in wasting time on a kid like him?” muttered Reeves. “Firman of Newbury would carry half a dozen of him on his back.”
The coach evidently had his own views as to the usefulness of McDowell, for he made the boy repeat his performance several times to show the less skilful how the trick should be done. Meantime Talbot, who was catching punts, drew over near the criticising group, and the comments became less audible. As regards side-line ridicule, Talbot held forcible opinions which he had no hesitation in expressing nor reluctance to defend. The trio moved farther down the line, and their wit flowed anew.
[Illustration: “THEY OUGHT TO TIE A STRING TO IT AND GIVE FATTY THE END.”]
All three of the newcomers got into the line-up of the second that afternoon. Bumpus thrashed about with more uproar than success at guard, while McDowell and Hardie were placed at right end and right tackle respectively. Harrison gave them a general exhortation to “play sharp now,” and Talbot urged Hardie in specific terms to “get right into Dunn.”
“You can manage him all right, if you stand right up to him,” he said. “Forget everything but the play!”
Hardie nodded gratefully. He felt no fear, nor was he by any means new to football, but he was conscious that the school did not expect much of him, and the personal interest of an important fellow like Talbot was, therefore, especially gratifying. In the big athletic school from which he had come to Boston, he had learned to think modestly of his prowess. While he had made his class eleven there, the school team lay beyond all reasonable hope. It was not easy for him to think of himself as ‘varsity material, even at Westcott’s!