Page:The secret play (1915).djvu/25

 by George Cotner, the manager, a squarely built and stocky youth of eighteen with an alert countenance.

"Hello, Dick," greeted Cotner. "Come out to see the Orphans play?"

"Is that what you call them?" asked Dick.

"That or the Coachless Wonders," was the smiling response. "Isn't it the dickens about Farrell? Mean trick to play on us, I say."

"Oh, I guess he didn't mean to play any trick. Guess he'd much rather have stayed here in Clearfield and coached the team than have been called home to see his sick mother."

Cotner shrugged his shoulders. "If he was called home," he said.

"Well, wasn't he? That's what I heard. What do you mean?"

"I mean that Joe wasn't getting much money here, as you probably know, Dick, and he's a pretty good coach. His contract expired this Fall and it hadn't been renewed. The Athletic Committee was ready to renew it, but Joe didn't show up. Then came that letter saying his mother was ill in Ireland and he was going home to visit her. It just occurred to me that maybe his mother was another school