They settled down to the work of the evening. Occasionally Dick glanced with interest across the table to see whether the hated Virgil lesson or the excitement of the new resolution was to possess Phil’s thoughts. For a time the lad, with face still flushed, gazed vacantly up toward the picture moulding. Then with a start and a slam he opened his Æneid at the fourth book, and ground away for two steady, patient hours at the lovelorn wails of the unhappy Dido, in whose fate he had about as much sympathetic interest as a horse on a coal wagon feels for the sufferings of the freezing poor.
“I’ll bet on him in the long run,” thought Dick, as he eyed the determined plodder.
The next day Philip Poole’s name appeared on the list of candidates for the nine.
CHAPTER V
A TOUGH PROBLEM
Melvin and Varrell returned from their Greek recitation together.
“I don’t like the way things are going this year,” Melvin was saying. “There’s too much confidence. If the track team wins, it will be just as expected, with no credit to any one; if we lose, woe to captain and manager.”
“You’re right,” said Varrell, “but forewarned is forearmed. Keep cool and reasonable and see to it that you don’t lose.”
“If it weren’t for Dickinson,” went on Melvin, “I shouldn’t have taken the thing at all. You see, I feel a kind of responsibility toward him because of the way in which I got him to run last year, so I didn’t like to refuse him.”
“You know I wasn’t here last year,” said Varrell.