Kennedy acted craftily.
"You played jolly well," he told his despondent team, as they trooped
off the field. "We haven't got together yet, that's all. And it was a
hot side we were playing today. They would have licked Blackburn's."
A good deal more in the same strain gave the house team the
comfortable feeling that they had done uncommonly well to get beaten
by only twenty-four points. Kennedy fostered the delusion, and in the
meantime arranged with Mr Dencroft to collect fifteen innocents and
lead them forth to be slaughtered by the house on the following
Friday. Mr Dencroft entered into the thing with a relish. When he
showed Kennedy the list of his team on the Friday morning, that
diplomatist chuckled. He foresaw a good time in the near future. "You
must play up like the dickens," he told the house during the
dinner-hour. "Dencroft is bringing a hot lot this afternoon. But I
think we shall lick them."
They did. When the whistle blew for No-side, the house had just
finished scoring its fourteenth try. Six goals and eight tries to nil
was the exact total. Dencroft's returned to headquarters, asking
itself in a dazed way if these things could be. They saw that cup on
their mantelpiece already. Keenness redoubled. Football became the
fashion in Dencroft's. The play of the team improved weekly.
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