Football -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
“No, sir, not exactly. He asked me when I came away to tell him about
anything new that he could use. There wasn’t much, though. I explained
our defence for the ‘big shift’ and told him about a lateral pass and
about this ‘two-over.’ I guess that’s all, sir. I suppose I shouldn’t
have done it, but it never occurred to me that there was any harm in
it. You see, Mr. Driscoll, the coach at home isn’t much. He doesn’t
know about new stuff, and he just pegs away at the things folks used
five years ago. And the teams we play--I mean that the High School
plays--are pretty up-to-date. So I tried to help the fellows by
telling them about anything I learned here that might be useful. I--I
guess I oughtn’t to have, though.”
“No, you ought not to have done that, Bates,” agreed the coach gravely.
“You see, you never can tell where a secret is going to land. It would
seem safe to say that Kenwood would pay no attention to anything going
on in a place like Leonardville, away off in Pennsylvania; would never
hear of it. But suppose, for instance, some fellow in your town had a
friend at Kenwood and wrote him that the local high school had a pretty
nifty play and sent him a diagram of it.”
“I’m pretty sure there isn’t any fellow in Leonardville, though, like
that, Mr. Driscoll.”
“I’m not saying there is. I’m only giving you an example of the way
secrets get around. There are other ways in which that ‘two-over’
play might reach Kenwood. A newspaper writer might explain it in an
account of a game, for instance. It isn’t safe to even write about such
things in your letters home, Bates. I didn’t caution you or any of the
players, for I supposed you’d realise that what goes on in practice is
a secret and not to be spoken of off the field. When was this letter
written?”
Dick thought hard a moment. “About two weeks ago, sir.”
“And it wasn’t sent. Why?”
“I hadn’t finished when it came time to go to a recitation and I
slipped it in a book and couldn’t find it later. So I wrote another.
And then, a couple of days afterward, I came across this one in the
book and tore it up and threw it away.”
“Where did you throw it?”
“I don’t remember, sir. I think, though, I dropped it in one of the
paper barrels on the Front; maybe the one at this side of Parkinson.”
“Anyone see you do it?”
“I suppose so. I guess there were fellows around.”
“Hm. Who do you know at Kenwood, Bates?”
“No one, sir.”
“Positive? I understand that you have corresponded with someone there
quite regularly since you came here.”
“That’s not so, Mr. Driscoll. I’ve never written a letter to Kenwood
Academy in my life and I don’t know anyone who goes there. I suppose
what happened is that the piece of my letter and the piece of envelope
happened to be found together. Who found them, sir?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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