Page:The secret play (1915).djvu/302

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half of Clearfield's total against Springdale is not made by this player's clever right foot we lose our guess."

"Now where in the name of common sense," gasped Dick, "did they get that tale?" Lanny, when Dick repeated the question to him, laughed.

"That's some of Chester's nonsense," he said. "Billings—he does the High School news for the paper, you know—met Chester after practice yesterday and tried to work him for news. Chester told him he wasn't allowed to say anything of what went on at practice. 'But,' says Chester, 'you're a fellow who's see a lot of football, Billings, and I want to ask you one thing. Did you ever know of any drop-kicker putting over seventeen out of twenty, and from hard angles?' Of course Billings said he hadn't and wanted to know all about it. But Chester wouldn't talk, begged Billings not to use what he had told him, or, if he must use it, not to tell where he'd got it, and then beat it. So that's how that happened."

Dick smiled and frowned. Finally he laughed. "Well, that's what I'd call a near-lie, Lanny. Still, it is funny! And it won't do us any harm, either. I hope the Springdale paper copies it."