“Buenos Aires,” he said curtly. Then, suddenly perceiving that Roger was lying in an unusual state of quiet, or reading signs of discouragement in his face, he added: “Hello! You aren’t sick, are you?”
“I guess not,” answered Roger, smiling drearily; “I felt a little tired.”
“You’ve been overdoing, that’s all, I guess. Talbot works you too hard. You ought to cut practice for a day or two.”
“Practice is over, anyway,” responded Roger.
“You want to take it easy until the race, then, and not think about it,” said Dunn. “We can’t afford to have you overtrained.”
Dunn departed and Roger took up his letter. He read with keen interest until he came to the last page, when a look of dismay swept over his face. “Your father is greatly concerned about your rowing,” ran the fatal passage. “We know an English gentleman here who rowed on the Cambridge crew, and he says that oarsmen not infrequently get some form of heart disease from the great strain put upon the heart in racing. Your father wanted to write immediately and forbid your rowing, but I told him that if you could play football without harm, you ought to be able to row a mile, and prevailed on him to leave the matter in your hands. Before you take part in any race you must see a good physician, Dr. Long, for example, and make sure that your heart is sound. You can’t afford to purchase the petty glory of rowing in a schoolboy race at the price of ill-health for the rest of your life.”
Roger dropped the letter from his hands and groaned aloud. “He won’t pass me, I’m sure. It’s all up with me if I go to a doctor. Why couldn’t the confounded letter have got lost on the way!”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WEAKENED HEART
The rest of the day Roger spent in moping, fuming, and intermittent attempts to divert himself by reading or work. Feeling wholly without appetite, he did not go down to luncheon when the bell rang. As a consequence Mr. Adams came up, inquired sympathetically about his condition, and proposed to telephone for a physician. But a physician was, at that moment, the last person that Roger desired to see; he could not reconcile himself to the thought of submitting his dearly cherished hopes to the decision of some bigoted foe of rowing who would condemn him on principle and flatter himself that he had saved another body from destruction. He had passed the Athletic Association doctor at the beginning of the season; why was not that enough to satisfy his mother’s requirement?