And Wilmot, interrupting his discourse on how he had saved the game by suggesting that they learn the signals during play, dug down into his trousers pocket and produced a battered thing with a single broken blade, which he kept on purpose to lend. “Be sure you give it back to me,” he said. “It’s the only lender I’ve got.” Meantime in the Newbury quarters, outside of which stood Mike and Dickie with wide-open eyes and most receptive ears, were to be heard laments and reproaches and an indignant clamor of foul play. Westcott’s knew the Newbury signals, there was no doubt about it. “Why, that Hardie would move right up on the signal for outside-tackle play, and go right back again when it was called off. He knew the signal all right.” Skillen’s assurance had personal interest behind it. He wanted it understood that he had been laboring under a handicap. “And on the centre plays in the second half,” said Firman, “Ford came right up into the line, and Talbot got in behind him. Of course I couldn’t make a hole.” “That miserable Callahan gave them away,” declared Newbold, the captain. “You wouldn’t suppose Westcott’s would play such a dirty trick, would you?” “These high flyers are always the worst grafters,” said Skillen. “They’ll cheat fast enough when they have to.” “But we changed some of the signals,” remarked Thorne, “and that outside-tackle signal that they knew was one of the new ones.” “That was only one,” said Newbold. “They knew at least half a dozen. Callahan sold us, that’s the fact. We’ve got proof. Fritz Schaefer saw him at the Westcott grounds last Wednesday, talking with one of their men. It’s a steal. We’ll protest the game.” “I don’t believe they did it,” said Thorne. “I know one or two of their fellows, and they aren’t that kind. Williams (the quarter-back) always gives the same numbers, anyway. No one who kept his ears open could help hearing some of them.” “That’s right, stand up for ’em!” said Hexam, bitterly. “Go back on your own school and try to get the Westcott fellows’ favor! They may let you into one of their societies when you get to college.” “I don’t feel as if I’d gone back on my own school much to-day,” returned Thorne, quietly. “It’s bad enough to be beaten without playing the baby.” “It’s a steal!” Newbold reiterated. “They got our signals and won unfairly. Smith says so.” Smith was saying so at that very moment, in strongly rhetorical language, to an eager crowd outside the quarters, including in its front rank a stout man with a diamond pin, and—on the outskirts—Mike McKay and Dickie Sumner. The high-minded president was sorely pained—not at the defeat of his school—oh, no! Nor by the anti-climax of his first gala day—certainly not! Nor by his loss of prestige with Alderman Skillen. He was pained, but only impersonally and officially, as the offended guardian of the moral majesty of the league.