“Do I?” he exclaimed. “You bet your life I do! But you won’t use me? It isn’t possible.”
“Come out for practice to-morrow,” urged Dick. “We will have Monday and Tuesday to practice, and you may be able to improve some in that time. If you can get into your old form you will be all right.”
“And Wednesday?” questioned Hal.
“If Gardner is not in condition to play Wednesday you shall fill his place.”
Hal seized Dick’s hand.
“Merriwell,” he chokingly exclaimed, “you’re the whitest fellow in the world! I will never again believe any gossiping lies about you.”
“So you have been hearing gossip of some sort, have you?” questioned Dick. “Well, never mind; I don’t wish to hear it myself. The quickest way to kill gossip is to scorn it.”
“Not always,” asserted Hal. “In some cases a fellow has to find where it started and choke it off there.”
There was no small surprise among the cadets when Darrell appeared on the field the following afternoon in a baseball suit. Already it had been whispered about that, through his deliberate crookedness, Fardale had nearly lost the game at Fairport. If Darrell observed the indignant glances bestowed upon him he made no sign.
That night Anson Day stopped Dick near the gymnasium.