in this book, I wanter tell yer. It's about an awful
smart feller who had ways of his own in gettin' at the bottom o'
things--kind of a detecative chap."

Snubby looked at the title and saw that it was "The Mystery of the
Million Dollar Diamond."

"It does a man good sometimes to exercise his brains on meesterious
happenin's," said old Jerry, "and you know we got plenty o' reason to
study up things o' that sort."

"Yes, we have; but I'm not half as much interested in that stuff just
now as I am in the Jefferson game. Who do you think's going to win?"

Old Jerry laid the book carefully aside on his table, looked at his
questioner seriously for a moment and said:

"I got my ijeers about that too, but it don't do no good to tell
everythin' that is millin' aroun' in your head. Now I once heared of a
feller who had a job forecastin' the weather for a noospaper, and he'd
allus say right out _positive_ whether it 'ud rain or shine--it was
allus goin' to be bright and clear or dark and stormy--and along come a
spell o' weather and every day for a week he said it was going to rain,
and I'll be singed if there was a cloud in the sky all through them
seven days--and the feller lost his job. Now the way I look at the game
is this: we got a big chance to win and we got a big chance to lose, and
if we do the things we oughter do it's goin' to be bright and fair, and
if we do the things we hadn't oughter do it's goin' to be dark and
stormy,--and I got my ijeers which is which. But, as I said, it don't do
too much good to tell _everythin'_ you know."

"It'll be an awful fight," said Snubby; "a terrible fight every single
minute of the time, and I'll bet you two cents to a tin whistle that
when that Jefferson crowd of heavy-weights gets through they'll know
they've been playing somebody. I wish there were something I could do.
I'm so doggone restless that I don't believe I'll sleep a wink
to-night."

Old Jerry gave voice to a cackle of mirth. "Bet you'll sleep all right,"
he said. "I never yet seen a feller like you that didn't sleep when the
time come for it, and as for helping, I guess you'll do your part if you
keep on believin' that Ridgley School can't be beat and when the game is
goin' on you yell your dumdest to encourage the team."

"Well," said Snubby, "I suppose you want to go on readin' that
lurid-looking book of yours, so I'll be going up to my room, I guess."

"It ain't so lurid," said Jerry, "but it's interestin