“It’s going to be a mighty close meet,” said Dick. “The Anglo-Saxon race has been at the top of the heap a long time, but some of the other nations are beginning to wake up. They’ve got a fine jumper in Germany; the Swedes have great long-distance runners, and you want to remember that an Italian won the half-mile race at the last meet. Another Italian won the Marathon, but he was disqualified, too. This isn’t going to be a dual meet between England and America by a good deal. It will be a whole lot more.”
The talk continued along these lines for a few minutes. Then Dick Merriwell spoke up again.
“I didn’t come in to talk about the Olympics, though,” he said. “There’s time enough for that. But there’s something a lot nearer home. I was noncommittal about this matter the other day when you asked me about it, but now I am going to tell you all about it. You fellows may remember that we had a game here a while ago between the New Haven Country Club and the Boston Athletic Association, in which Jim Phillips pitched. Well, the Boston people weren’t very keen about taking their licking without trying to come back at us, and they’ve challenged for another game. They’ve got practically the whole Harvard team as members, and Briggs and Bowen will be their battery. They think it would be interesting if another game was arranged, with as many Yale players as possible playing for New Haven. It would really, if their desires were met, be practically another Harvard-Yale game.
“I promised to see what could be done, and the country club people appointed me to act as captain of a team, if it could be picked. I may play myself—I haven’t played a real game of ball for some time. What do you say?”
The suggestion met with an enthusiastic response.
“You fellows never will let well enough alone,” said Woeful Watson, bound to be pessimistic. The idea that his classmates and friends were enthusiastic over any idea was enough to set Watson against it. “You licked them once. Now they’re asking for another chance, when they’ll know what they’re up against, and you’re all ready to give it to them. Foolish, I call it.”
But they were far too accustomed to Watson’s peevish ways to be even disturbed, much less influenced, by his croaking. Instead, all the baseball players there began at once discussing the arrangements for the game.
“I’m delighted to have another chance with Briggs,” said Jim Phillips. “The first game, up at Cambridge, was all right, but there was a lot of luck about the way we won that second one, down in New York. I’d like to run up against Briggs some time when conditions were exactly right.”
“I don’t mind playing baseball,” agreed Brady. “But this talk about throwing the hammer or putting the shot gets on my nerves. I think I’ll fake when it comes to the trials, and then they won’t have me, anyhow.”
“Come off, you old faker!” said Jim affectionately. “You know you’ll work your head off, when it’s a case of doing something for the flag. That’s even bigger than a chance to work for Yale. Only a few of us in this country are Yale men, after all, but we’re all Americans; and in these days, when war’s going out of fashion, games are the only means of keeping up the old international rivalries.”