“You’re out there,” Sands answered gloomily. “Curtis lives in New York and Todd in Brooklyn, and both are east of the Hudson.”
Melvin looked serious. “Then they’ll be on the other side. I don’t like that. I’ve stood side by side with John Curtis in so many hard fights that it seems like treachery to play against him. I really don’t want to do it.”
Sands laughed. “That’s you all over. You tackle everything big and little in deadly earnest as if you were fighting the battle of Gettysburg all by yourself. This isn’t a Hillbury game; it’s a kind of lark.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that kind of a lark. When you begin, it’s a joke; before you’re through, it’s a fight for blood.”
“What do you think of my case?” replied Sands. “I have one brother in Yale and another in Harvard, and both on the teams.”
“I’ve heard of them,” said Melvin. “How do they contrive to avoid scrapping?”
“They never discuss college matters at all. When I’m with one, he urges me to go to Yale; when the other gets hold of me, he talks Harvard; when we are all together, they cut the subject.”
Dick still meditated. Sands tried another tack.
“The New Englanders are talking big. Curtis says the Greasers will wish they’d stayed on the plains when his team’s through with them.”
“Did he really say that?” asked Dick, straightening up.