“But there was one on that piazza who wa’n’t froze.  Fur from it!  Willie, the poet waiter, made a jump, swung his long legs over the porch-rail, hit the ground, and took after that Parker man like a cat after a field mouse.

“Run!  I never see such runnin’!  He fairly flashed across that lawn and over the rise.  Parker was almost to the landin’; two more jumps and he’d been aboard the launch.  If he’d once got aboard, a turn of the switch and that electric craft would have had him out of danger in a shake.  But them two jumps was two too many.  Willie riz off the ground like a flyin’ machine, turned his feet up and his head down, and lapped his arms around Parker’s knees.  Down the pair of ’em went ‘Ker-wallop!’ and the football flew out of Parker’s arms.

“In an eyewink that poet was up, grabs the ball, and comes tearin’ back toward us.

“‘Stop him!’ shrieks Parker from astern.

“‘Head him off!  Tackle him!’ bellers the big chap who was hangin’ onto the detective.

“They tell me that discipline and obeyin’ orders is as much in football as ’tis aboard ship.  If that’s so, every one of the Old Home House eleven was onto their jobs.  There was five men between Willie and the hotel, and they all bore down on him like bats on a June bug.

“‘Get him!’ howls Parker, racin’ to help.

“‘Down him!’ chimes in big Jim, his knee in poor Snow’s back.

“‘Run, Bearse!  Run!’ whoops the Pinkerton man, liftin’ his mouth out of the sand.

“He run—­don’t you worry about that!  Likewise he dodged.  One chap swooped at him, and he ducked under his arms.  Another made a dive, and he jumped over him.  The third one he pushed one side with his hand.  ‘Pushed!’ did I say?  ‘Knocked’ would be better, for the feller—­the carpenter ‘twas—­went over and over like a barrel rollin’ down hill.  But there was two more left, and one of ’em was bound to have him.

“Then a window upstairs banged open.

“‘Oh, Mr. Bearse!’ screamed a voice—­Grace Sterzer’s voice.  ’Don’t let them get you!’

“We all heard her, in spite of the shoutin’ and racket.  Willie heard her, too.  The two fellers, one at each side, was almost on him, when he stopped, looked up, jumped back, and, as cool as a rain barrel in January, he dropped that ball and kicked it.

“I can see that picture now, like a tableau at a church sociable.  The fellers that was runnin’, the others on the ground, and that literary pie passer with his foot swung up to his chin.

“And the ball!  It sailed up and up in a long curve, began to drop, passed over the piazza roof, and out of sight.

“‘Lock your door, Miss Sterzer,’ sung out Fred Bearse—­’Willie’ for short.  ’Lock your door and keep that ball.  I think your father’s paper is inside it.’

“As sure as my name is Barzilla Wingate, he had kicked that football straight through the open window into old Gabe’s room.”