Steve flushed.
"Do you mean by your words that I am not really captain of the team now?" he asked, touched.
"Well, I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but you should hear some of the talk here at the academy. You know football is being run differently here this year than ever before."
"Differently and better!" exclaimed Steve stiffly. "Fardale has cut a little ice in baseball before this, but we’ve never done much at football, and all these other teams thought they were as good or better than Fardale. This is the first year Fardale ever started off a winner and kept it up. We owe this to the coaching we have received."
Darrell laughed.
"Why don’t you confess that you owe it to that remarkable left half-back, who is robbing you of the honors?" he asked.
"You mean Merriwell—Dick Merriwell?"
"Of course. How could I mean any one else?"
"Who says he is robbing me of honors?"
"Oh—everybody, except a few particular friends of his."