ut_ for building a team out of nothing Boutelle has him both
shoulders to the mat!"

"I don't believe Boots would want to coach the first," replied Don.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. He's sort of--well, he kind of likes to--Oh, I don't
know."

"Very clearly explained, Donald."

"Well, Boots, if he was a soldier, would be the sort that would want to
lead a charge where the odds were against him. See what I mean?"

"You mean he has a hankering for the forlorn chance business? Maybe so.
That's not a bad name for the second, is it? The Forlorn Chances! I
guess you've got him dead to rights, though. Boots is for the under dog
every time. I guess coaching the first and having his pick of the
players wouldn't make any sort of a hit with Boots. It would be too
tame. Boots likes to take three discarded veterans, two crips and a
handful of green youngsters and whittle them into a bunch that will make
us sweat and toil to score on. And, what's more, he does it! Bet you
anything, Don, this year's second will be every bit as good as last
year's."

"I won't take it, because I think so myself," laughed Don. "I can't see
how he's going to do it, Tim, but something tells me he will!"

"Oh, with you to coach the guards it will be no trick at all," said Tim,
grinning.

Don smiled thinly. "I'll make an awful mess of it, I guess," he
muttered.

"Not you, boy!" and Tim slapped him encouragingly on the back. "You'll
blunder right ahead to glory, same as you always do. You'll make hard
work of it and all that, but you'll get there. Don, you're exactly like
the porpoise--no, the tortoise in the fable. You don't look fast, old
man, but you keep on moving ahead and saying nothing and when the hares
arrive you're curled up on the finish line fast asleep. Tortoises can't
curl up, though, can they? And, say, what the dickens _is_ a tortoise,
anyway? I always get tortoises and porpoises mixed."

"A porpoise is a fish," replied Don gravely. "And a tortoise is a land
turtle. But they're both anthropoids."

"Are they?" asked Tim vaguely. "All right. Here, what are you grinning
at? Anthropoids nothing! An anthropoid is a monkey or--or something."

"You're an anthropoid yourself, Timmy."

"Meaning I'm a monkey?"

"Not at all. Here, look it up." And Don shoved a dictionary across the
table. Tim accepted it suspiciously.

"All right," he said, "but if it's what I think it is you'll have to
fight. Anthesis, anthropocosmic----Say, I'm glad