Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/106

82 His eyes shone with excitement and his cheeks were red; he looked flurried. Over in a corner Rupert Ormsby, with nothing on but one red stocking, sat patiently picking a knot in his shoestring and whistling in a subdued key.

Joe Herrick, all dressed, sat on a bench across the room and looked at Rupert's muscles. They were brown and big and active; there was something unpleasantly suggestive in the way they quivered and stood out in Rupert's arms when he was engaged in even the mild exercise of picking a knot.

"No joke having to go up against a big brute like that," thought Herrick. "But if I could only put it all over him!"

Frank Windsor clapped his hands and cried, "All out, Corinthians!"

Rupert, drawing on his other stocking, looked up with a smile. "We'll be with you in a moment," he said.

It was a snapping, bright October day, with a north wind blowing and clouds flying up over the brilliant woods that surrounded the field. Harry, running out into this clear sharp