By not watching the Scrub Team practice that afternoon Loring missed something that would have interested him. The First called off the scrimmage, choosing to spend the time in perfecting certain plays to be used on the morrow against Toll’s, and so Mr. Babcock, following “G. G.’s” example, devoted much of the session to a general preparation for the Minster High School game. But he also found time to try out two of Loring’s plays, one of them the forward-pass strategy that had aroused Tom’s interest. He had no intention of using them against Minster, and so the plays did not get beyond the first stage of development. They were explained and the players were placed in their correct positions, and then, several times at a walk and several times at full speed, they were enacted against an opposing line of ten substitutes. The forward-pass play was rather intricate at first, or seemed so, and perhaps it was just as well that Loring wasn’t there to watch the players get tangled up. Their efforts would doubtless have made him exceedingly nervous! But the last time that Heard tossed the ball back to Clif and Clif swept it forward down the field the performance went with a very fair degree of snap and smoothness. What Mr. Babcock’s verdict on the play was did not appear. The second play, though, held forth small promise, and Clif didn’t have to await “Cocky’s” judgment to know that it would not be added to the Scrub’s equipment. Loring, learning from Clif that the forward-pass play had been experimented with, looked for some word from Mr. Babcock, but none came that evening, nor the next day. In fact, the following week was well along before Loring heard again from the Scrub coach. That Friday evening was largely spent by Loring and Clif in trying to get Tom to acknowledge that he had been several sorts of an idiot and that he owed them the deepest gratitude for rescuing him from a ruinous position. Tom, however, preferred to argue about it. At heart, he knew that he had acted foolishly, and was tremendously grateful, but he didn’t intend to say so in so many words. The best they could get from him was the acknowledgment that, now that he _was_ back, he was glad of it, and that it was decent of them to take so much trouble about him. He tried to get Loring――and, afterwards, Wattles――to tell him how much the kidnaping expedition had cost so that he could pay back the money. But Loring wouldn’t tell, and Wattles’s countenance was absolutely vacant when he was questioned on the subject. He couldn’t seem to remember a thing! In the end Tom gave up in despair and nursed a mild grouch for some minutes. It was dissipated, however, when Loring got Wattles to tell about falling into the brook. Not that Wattles was intentionally humorous. Quite the contrary. That was what made it so funny.