After the boy had dropped on the ball and had tossed it back to the coach their eyes met.

In the coach's was just the merest twinkle, a very ghost of a smile; but Neil saw it, and it said to him as plainly as words could have said, "I know just how you feel, my boy, but you'll get over it after a while." The coach passed on and the flush faded from Neil's cheeks; he even smiled a little.

It was all right; Mills understood.

It was almost as though they shared a secret between them.

Alfred Mills, head football coach at Erskine College, had no more devoted admirer and partizan from that moment than Neil Fletcher, '05.
Next the men were spread out until there was a little space between each, and the coach passed behind the line and shot the ball through, and they had an opportunity to see what they could do with a pigskin that sped away ahead of them.