CHAPTER XXII

CHEERS, SONGS AND SPEECHES

That Tuesday afternoon practice was the hardest of the season. For four twelve-minute periods, the Scrubs, driven to desperation by Dick's reiterated assertion that this was their last chance to show what they could really do, eternally prodded by Captain Nostrand and taunted until they were fighting mad by Quarterback Farrar, drove at the Varsity as if their future salvation depended on the utter demolition of the adversary! Nostrand thumped them on the backs, even kicked them none too gently when they crouched too high on defense, shouted threats and pleas until his voice cracked. Pete Farrar shrilly called them names: "bone-heads," "quitters," "babies," "pups," and dared them to show one tiny scrap of intelligence, of fight! And Dick, hobbling from one side to the other, scolding, in-