Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/129

 fifteen minutes after supper had begun, received a salvo of hand-clapping as it made its way to the two training tables at the end of the room. The Scrub, distributed here and there about the hall, received no applause, but every member of it knew where glory really belonged! Hadn't they completely shut out a team that had scored on the First, but a fortnight ago? They had! Well, then!

Besides, if Charlie Duval hadn't called for a pass over the line that time, if he had let Kemble shoot the ball over the end, why, it was dollars to doughnuts they'd have had another score. Or if Stiles hadn't fumbled on High School's thirty-three before that—Why, any one could see that Scrub's total ought really to have been 19, at least; maybe 20; and 19 was all that the First had been able to make against High School! Then just because the First ran up a 26 to 6 score against a weak team over at Minster every one had to go crazy about it! Huh!

At Wyndham you made an arrangement with a citizen of Greek birth named—well, no one could pronounce his name in its entirety, but you called him "Poppy," which was about a quarter of the whole—for your Sunday paper. "Poppy" delivered it, along with some forty others, at the entrance. After breakfast—before if you had time—you went and got it. "Poppy," however, didn't attempt to mark each subscriber's name on his paper. He merely delivered the required assortment, and let you do your own selecting. Nine times out of ten you got a paper. Some