Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/92

 evening he had been doubtful of making the Second, produced a reaction. He guessed he was pretty lucky, after all. There were only some twenty names on this list, which meant that fully a dozen fellows had been dropped completely. Then his eyes hurried down the first column and across to the second. "Howlett, Jackson, Kemble—"

Good! Tom had made it, too! Then, as he went on into the locker room, it occurred to him that perhaps Tom wouldn't be as gratified as he was. Perhaps Tom, in spite of his pessimistic utterances, had secretly expected to be retained on the First! But later in the afternoon Tom scouted the idea with convincing sincerity.

"I hadn't the ghost of a chance, Clif, and I knew it the second day of practice. I can play football pretty well, but I haven't had the experience fellows like Dave Lothrop and Billy Desmond and Pete Jensen and a lot more have had. And, of course, I'm light. No, sir, I'm satisfied to be here, old son. Besides, I'm going to get a lot of fun out of showing some of those First Team swelled-heads that they don't know all the football there is, as good as they may be! Heck, I'm not kicking!"

And neither was Clif. In fact, after listening to Mr. Babcock's talk to them on the old wooden baseball grand stand that had been moved aside to make room for the gridiron, he had begun to wonder whether being a member of so glorious a company as the Scrub wasn't a far better thing than belonging to the First