“I mean what I say,” went on Dickinson. “When I took the captaincy of the track team, it was only on condition that I should have no trouble about business matters. So they appointed Saville. Now that he’s gone, I must have another man just as trustworthy.”
“That’s mere flattery,” replied Dick, still jesting. “I’m too old a fish to nibble at that kind of a bait.”
Dickinson grew indignant. “I’m not flattering. I know that if you undertake the thing, it will be well done.”
“But I don’t want it,” pleaded Melvin, serious at last. “There are twenty fellows who would be delighted to serve, who would do just as well as I. Besides, I play football, and who ever heard of a football player acting as manager?”
“I played too, didn’t I, but that doesn’t release me from the captaincy. I’m sure I’d like to get out of the thing as much as you.”
“A man who can do a quarter in fifty seconds can’t expect to get out of it.”
“Say forty!” exclaimed Dickinson, angrily. “You may as well.”
Dick laughed. There was nothing so certain to arouse Dickinson’s ire as the assumption that he was a marvelous runner whose records could be counted on to move in a sliding scale downward with no particular limit in sight. This sensitiveness, due partly to the boy’s extreme modesty, partly to his fear of disappointing such high expectations, his comrades had played on to their amusement more than once.
“I think I’ll get out altogether,” said the runner, gloomily.
“You can’t,” said Melvin; “the school wouldn’t let you.”