"Monday?" exclaimed Tom relievedly. "Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Wyatt. I'll have it Monday all right! You see if I don't!"
"You'll see if you don't," responded the instructor grimly.
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,
