cing
them. Yet, when the face relaxed into the smile that everyone had
grown to love, its white, drawn weariness was forgotten. The coach was
himself again.

"Well, boys, you've got one on me this time. Sorry to have kept you
waiting."

John Brown advanced into the room, nodding a greeting to Red Murdock.
He lifted a foot and placed it upon the empty end of a bench on which
some players were seated, leaning over to rest his elbow on his
upraised knee and his chin upon the palm of his hand. He stood thus,
the thumb of his other hand run in under his belt strap, his cap pulled
well down so that the band of the rim seemed almost to press against
the furrowed line of his forehead. Just a simple, unaffected pose
perhaps--but somehow, this tardy Monday afternoon, it held a touch of
the dramatic.

"Team--I have a little surprise for you to-day," said the great John
Brown. "We're not going to discuss Saturday's game with Larwood, The
game itself has been discussed enough by everyone who saw it. But I
would like to say to you and let it be heralded as coming from me, that
I never hope to see a more perfect game of football than you men of
Elliott played against Larwood!"

Could the roof have crashed in unexpectedly at that instant it could
have caused no more profound astonishment than this most surprising of
tributes from the lips of John Brown. Was he suddenly gone crazy--or
was he about to perpetrate some biting joke?

A substitute, anticipating a sarcastic follow-up, let out a mirthful
cackle.

"All right, you're through for the day." The coach gave the order
without raising his voice nor even looking at the culprit. He waited
until the chagrined disturber had slunk out before resuming.

"I mean it, men. My idea of perfect play Is when a team performs
strictly as it has been coached to perform ... following a system
through to the very last regardless of the breaks of the game or the
preconceived notions of the individual players. That is team-work in
the fullest--that is genuine football. That you failed to win does not
alter the fact that you gave a faultless exhibition insofar as your
experience and training permitted. Saturday you were by no means the
greatest team I have ever coached, but you were by all odds the
fightingest, willingest bunch of grid warriors that, in my estimation,
ever wore moleskins!"

The coach paused and shifted his position to the other knee while the
Elliott men sat like