Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 74: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

864 We circled around, and Chuck drove me back to the house. “ By the way,” I says, before I turned to go in, ‘‘ how did your sis come to know this dude?” “Why,” says Chuck, sort of embar- rassed, “ seems sis met him up at the island last summer. She spent the season with her roommate’s family; they have a summer home there.” “Then, I guess it wasn’t Centerville that pulled him down this way,” I says. ‘As to that,” says Chuck, stepping on the gas, “I guess you'll have to ask sis. All I can say is, she thinks shooting craps is wonderful, and says ‘ thee’ and ‘ thou ’ should never have been abandoned from everyday language.” T MIGHT have used Halibut Haines and beaten Georgia and Texas State. I was certain that I could have, but I didn’t wan- na tip my mitt, if you get me. There was nothin’ much to be gained beating either the ‘ Crackers’ or the ‘ Big Horn’ crowd, while there was a great deal to be gathered by holding this prize fish of mine back. There was a matter of psychology, if noth- ing else. Psychology, you know, figures as much in football as in anything. Remember when 3 Terry McGovern was in his prime, 4he greatest featherweight champion of them allp Well, Terrible Terry used to scare half his opponents to death just by looking at ’em from across the ring before the fight started. Then this bird Young Corbett comes along, and the night of the fight on his way out to the ring he stops at the door of Terry’s dressing room and, pounding with both taped fists, says: “‘ Come on, you false alarm, and get your licking.” Get me? Unexpected! McGovern was licked then and _ there. They say he shook all over. When Young Corbett got him into the ring, he did just what he said he’d do—gave him the licking and became champion. Psychology, plus ability. They’re twins you can’t beat. Sur- prise the other guy, and you’yve got him on the run, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. That’s the kind of a surprise I was hold- ing back for Harvard. Ever since the day aiter the night Chuck Blaisdell had wised me up to Haines and I had seen for my- self, I had been champing on the bit for this Harvard game. When the season opened, the mere thought of facing ’em had been a nightmare. Now I couldn’t wait to get North fast enough. Halibut Haines was not only what Blaisdell’s sister had said he was, but she had been modest in giving away his secret. He had combined fisherman’s knowledge with a great natural ability, and through weeks of the hardest kind cf practice had developed until he was absolutely uncanny. Defensively he wasn’t worth a row of ten pins. In a tackle he’d miss an elephant. And to attempt to make a line man out of him and get him to charge low would have been like matching the milkman to race Morvich. He was good for just one thing, and that solitary accom- plishment, along with the psychological an- gle to it, I hoped would prove a combination that would beat Harvard and double my rep’, as I’d get credit for developing another wonder player. As far as the rest of the Centerville squad went, all I had to do was to make a de- fensive team out of it, and that proved easier than I thought it would. From the three squads I got a whale of a combina- tion that I developed into a stone wall, with~ fast ends and little Jerry Borden at quarter- back, a sure tackler and a whale of a de- fensive player, but only ordinary at run- ning a team. I sent North and got a coupla good line coaches, and paid them outa my own pocket to come down and spend three weeks drilling the line in defensive play. Boy, they did a job, too. There’s a lot in a good defensive line man’s bag of tricks, when he knows his game. Well, these babies showed my crowd all there was and a few new ones. Now, don’t get me wrong. I had a whale of a ‘— to keep the other fellows from scoring, but all was wet when it came to getting any points myself, with the exception of Hali- but Haines. I was banking my all on him. If he got stage fright and fell down, or somebody busted through the line and laid him for a headache, I would be outa luck. comichctoks.co