“You’re both pretty well used up,” said Dick. “Perhaps you’d better finish this after you’ve had a little rest.”
“All right,” said both Chip and Obediah in a breath, for they were glad to stop.
“Gentlemen!” said Ted Smart, rising and making a sweeping gesture toward the contestants, “I wish to call your attention to the most marvelous boxers of modern times.”
Unobserved by the boys, a tall, awkward, sandy-whiskered man and a raw-boned, muscular-looking youth had approached the clubhouse while Chip and Obediah were engaged. They were now standing a few feet away, and the men laughed sneeringly at Smart’s words.
“Was that what you fellers call boxing?” he derisively inquired. “Why, my boy, Jack, here, can put on the gloves and knock the stuffing out of any of your crowd.”
The speaker was John Cole.
The boys recognized him instantly, for Cole had been on the original athletic committee at Maplewood when Dick and his friends arrived at that place. He had backed Benton Hammerswell in all Hammerswell’s moves.
Jack Cole was really an athlete of no mean ability. He was also a good baseball player, and had been retained on the Maplewood team by Hammerswell up to the time that the Maplewood manager had engaged a new team throughout.
“I tell yer,” said John Cole, looking the boys over and letting his eyes rest on Dick Merriwell, “when Jack and I heerd you fellers had come down here, we jest decided to walk over and see yer. Mebbe you remember the fu’st day you came into Maplewood?”
“Yes, we remember it very well,” replied Dick.