“Makes you daft,” repeated Dick. “Why, you’re the one who makes him, and all the rest of us, hot, going around with a sour face and a chip on your shoulder. If I’d been Don I’d have felt like giving you a good thrashing. You never gave him a chance to be decent.”
The quarter back looked a little sheepish.
“I knew he couldn’t be,” he returned quickly, “so I just got in my licks first. I thought I’d give him a dose of his own medicine and see how he liked it.”
“You little idiot!” Merriwell retorted. “Do you know what you’re going to do if you keep on this way? You’re going to lose the game for us Saturday. If you can’t take a brace, we’ll be licked as sure as fate, and there won’t be a person to blame for it but yourself.”
Kenny’s face flushed and he made a quick, dissenting motion with one hand.
“Look here, Dick,” he protested. “That’s putting it pretty strong, isn’t it?”
“It’s a fact,” Merriwell returned emphatically.
His words seemed to sober Kenny and bring him to a partial realization of the gravity of the situation. All the way back to the campus Dick kept up his argument, and by the time they got off the car at Church and High Streets he had brought the quarter back into a contrite and fairly repentant frame of mind.
At the same time, it seemed to him that Kenny was not so pliable as he had been the night before. It had been harder to bring him to a realization of the error of his ways. Somehow, Dick felt almost as if there was a counter influence which was pulling against his own—something which was encouraging Kenny in his rebellion and egging him on in the disagreement with Tempest.
What it could be he could not imagine. Who among the quarter back’s friends or acquaintances could encourage him in his fatal folly? For any sane person must realize that if the fellow persisted in his course a victory on Saturday would be seriously imperiled.