CHAPTER XXX.THE FRESHMAN COXSWAIN.
There was a moment of silence, and then Ready was heard sobbing violently, as if his heart were breaking.
“What makes you feel so bad, Jack?” asked Bingham. “Is it because we didn’t get Merriwell to coach our crew?”
“Not that, not that!” asserted Jack, pressing his handkerchief to his eyes and flopping one hand in a gesture of intense sadness. “I’m so sorry for him! I love him even as I love a nice, juicy steak, and to think this terrible disappointment must be his! Alas! alas!”
“What ails you?” cried Dashleigh. “Don’t get a foolish notion into your head that the sophs will beat us.”
“It is written in the stars,” solemnly declared Ready. “As far as that race is concerned, you’ll not be in it this year.”
“We’ll have a walkover,” put in Starbright, who had been keeping still and listening to the others, but who was aroused now. “Merry says we have the finest freshman crew since his day in the freshman boat.”
“Taffy,” said Jack. “But it’s a poor coach that makes such talk to his men.”
“He made it before he knew he was to coach us.”
“Well, then it is certain that he will now find you in a very sloppy condition. There is nothing surer to spoil a freshman crew than praise. Freshmen fall easy subjects to that terrible disease known as the swellidus headedus, and it makes monkeys of them.”
“You don’t need to have it,” said Starbright. “Nature got ahead of the disease.”
“Young man,” said Jack, severely glaring at Dick’s muscular figure, “if you were not so small I’d thrash you for that insult! As it is, fearing lest I do you permanent injury, I withhold my hand. But we’ll literally bury you out at Lake Whitney, for all of your new coach.”
Starbright laughed heartily.
“That’s the greatest joke you’ve cracked this evening, Ready,” he cried, in his hearty way.
“Why, your old crew is made up in a crazy manner!” declared Ready, who was a little touched and dropped his bantering style for a time. “You’ve got a coxswain as heavy as I am—yes, heavier than I am. What sort of crazy notion is that?”
“Don’t let it worry you,” advised Dick.
“It isn’t worrying me, fellow. It’s delighting my soul. If you are crazy to pull around that amount of dead weight in the stern of your boat, go ahead. But I don’t see how Merriwell can say you have a good crew. I think he is overworked, poor fellow! I fear I see in my mind’s eye an asylum for the insane looming darkly before him.”
“Sh!” said Bingham, with a cautioning motion toward Jack. “Don’t alarm him, or it may send him off at once. Say something soothing to him, Ready.”
“Don’t worry, gentlemen,” said Frank, standing up and stretching his splendid arms above his head. “I am sure I was never in better condition than at this minute, and I’m glad to be able to give a little time to the freshmen. I feel it my duty to give the time to the new class, just as I gave it to your class last year, Ready.”
“Don’t apologize! don’t apologize!” cried Jack. “It isn’t necessary. You had good stuff to work on last year; but just look at it this year! Oh, Laura! Think of a boat being pulled by such Indians as Starbright, Dashleigh, Morgan, and others of the same ilk, with a big duffer like Earl Knight in the stern! Merriwell, get Knight out of that boat! I beg—I implore you to do it! The poor freshmen! My tender heart bleeds for them, and their defeat will be bad enough without making it worse by giving them a man like that to drag around.”
“When he wants your advice I think he’ll ask for it!” snapped Dashleigh, who did not fancy this free-and-easy style of Ready with Merriwell.
“He may not know how bad he needs it till the race is over,” said Jack. “Besides that, if I remember correctly, he is not in the habit of asking much advice.”
“Why are you not going to row this year, Ready?” asked Carson.
“Oh, the boys wanted to give the freshmen achance!” said Jack. “I was urged to row, but I said, ’What’s the use to make it a dead sure thing at the start?’ So they left me out. Besides, baseball is just about all I can attend to. I’m no steam-engine, like Merriwell. He’s the only one of his kind. He’s the only fellow I ever saw who was able to do anything and everything without ever making a muff. But he can’t make a winning freshman crew out of a lot of wooden cigar-store signs. Nay, nay, sweet one; ’tis impossible.”
“Tell you what,” cried Dashleigh; “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars we beat your old crew!”
“Now, that is not money enough to pay me for the trouble of putting it up. If you had said one thousand dollars, I might have considered it.”
“You haven’t seen a thousand dollars since you looked in a window of a New York bank during the trip of the ball-team,” said Starbright.
“And that’s the only time you ever saw so much money,” put in Dashleigh.
“Base calumny!” declared Jack. “But I so little regard such false statements that I will not even draw my purse to disprove them. But I’ll take that bet of yours, if you will call it fifty cents, which I happen to have convenient in my waistcoat pocket.”
With a languid air he brought forth a silver half-dollar, which he triumphantly displayed.
Carson snatched the piece and looked at it.
“Plugged!” he remarked, as he passed it back toJack. “I thought it could not be possible that you had all that good money.”
Ready looked distressed.
“Plugged?” he gasped, examining the money. “Alas, too true! But I happen to know a near-sighted beer-slinger. I shall give the half to you, Carson, and let you go round there and enjoy yourself. The change will do you good.”
“I couldn’t think of leaving you penniless,” declared the Westerner, with a wave of his hand.
“They’re onto you!” cried Dashleigh, laughing.
There was a rap at the door, and Frank called “Come in.” The door opened, and a young man with a splendid figure entered the room with some hesitation.
“Hello, Knight!” cried Merry. “Come right in. You’re welcome.”
“There,” said Ready to Starbright and Dashleigh, “comes the handicap that will make you look like thirty cents in the little affair we have been discussing. Think of dragging around a coxswain like that! Haven’t you a small man in your whole class that can steer a boat?”
“Shut up, please!” warned Dick, in a low tone. “Knight is sensitive, and he’ll think you’re making some observation about his face.”
For Earl Knight had a terrible bluish scar that ran the whole length of his left cheek from temple to chin. Otherwise he was quite a good-looking fellow. But that scar was enough to attract and fascinate any onewho saw it for the first time, and it caused strangers to stare at Knight wherever he went, so that in time he became very sensitive about his misfortune.
This scar had made Knight very retiring when he first entered college, but he was a fine, strong, athletic-looking fellow, and his classmates finally drew him out and induced him to take part in athletics.
When it came to rowing, it was found that Knight had once been a coxswain on a high-school crew, or something of the sort, and some combination of circumstances gave him the stern of the freshman boat.
It was not long before the discovery was made that Knight knew his business. He could steer a boat, and he could keep a crew in trim at those times when they were not beneath the eye of a coach. He had an encouraging way of calling a man down pleasantly and putting new life and effort into him, instead of getting him mad and sulky, which is an art in itself.
Merriwell met Knight cordially, and soon had him feeling somewhat more at ease in the midst of this strange and remarkable gathering of students from all classes.
Because of his diffidence, Knight was scarcely known outside his own class. In fact, until he began working with the freshman crew, not even Merriwell had known there was such a man in college.
“Why, he’s as large as Merriwell!” muttered Ready, who could not be repressed. “Say, Dashleigh, I’d like to make that thousand-dollar bet two thousand. Youcan never win with a man like that in the stern of your old scow. I’ll bet my life on it!”
“Make it something of value,” said Bert. “Put up that plugged half!”
“Now, look here,” growled Ready; “I’m the only chap who has a license to be fresh in this crowd, so you had better quit. You can’t follow it up without getting into trouble. I have studied the art of being fresh and remaining alive; but an ordinary man who tries to follow in my footsteps should take out a large life-insurance and make his will.”
After a time, Frank plainly stated that he would excuse all who had not been specially requested to remain, laughing as he did so.
“Fired out!” murmured Ready sadly. “Methinks I scent a secret conclave, and I wouldst rubber, if I could. But I must hie myself away.”
So they filed out, bidding Frank good night, and not one took offense at being thus plainly told that they were to go. Starbright, Dashleigh, and Knight remained.
Some time later other members of the freshman crew found their way to Frank’s room, where they remained for at least an hour behind locked doors.
“It’s no use,” declared Ready; “he can’t talk victory into them.”