Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/173



HE banquet was not to begin until eight o'clock. Harry, sitting at his desk, invited ideas for a speech. "Substitutes"—it ought to be easy to invent something humorous and also something quite touching to say on the subject Mr. Eldredge had given him. Fellows working hard all the season taking the rough knocks of better players, used as buffers by the first eleven, and then on the day of the game just wearing the first eleven's blankets and toddling up and down the side-line. They were comical figures,—all bundled and blanketed,—but they were pathetic, too, and each one praying that some one on the first eleven would get hurt not seriously hurt, of course, but just enough to have to leave the game. It was inevitable that a substitute should always