Out at the country club, Jim Phillips and Brady practiced for the first time with Hasbrook and the other men who made up the team, arranging signals and other details for the game. A new batting order had to be made up, too, and Hasbrook, who knew how formidable a batter Brady was, put him in as fourth man, with Jim Phillips to follow him. A great many members, going out to play golf or tennis, decided to watch the baseball practice instead, and the big porch of the country club was deserted. Almost deserted—not quite, for in a corner, hidden by some plants, sat Parker and his new sophomore friends, Carpenter and Shesgren.
“It’s worked, so far,” said Parker, drawing in luxuriously on a straw that protruded from a long, fizzy glass. “He walked right into it, and even his friend Merriwell couldn’t see the danger. I don’t blame him. He thinks our little friend Phillips is all he should be. He’ll have quite a shock when he wakes up and finds out.”
“What have you got against Merriwell, Parker?” asked Carpenter.
He, like almost every other Yale man, both liked and respected the universal coach, who had certainly done great things for the blue since his Alma Mater had called him back to take general charge of all her athletic teams; supervising all of them, and coaching the more important teams himself. Carpenter was unable to understand why Parker, himself an athlete, and, therefore, better able to understand than most of his fellow students just how much the universal coach had done for Yale, should be so bitter against Merriwell.
Parker was more genial than usual with his sophomore allies, whom, as a matter of fact, he secretly despised. He had been drinking iced drinks all afternoon, and they had had a distinct effect upon him.
“Why, I’ll tell you, Carpenter, my boy,” he said. “I’m likely to be captain of the football team here next fall, see, and I want to be the real captain. Look at old Tom Sherman. What’s he got to say about the baseball team? It’s all up to Merriwell. Same way with Murchison. He was elected captain of the crew. Has he got anything to do with the way the crew is run? Not so you could notice it. It’s Mr. Richard Merriwell who dictates everything.”
“Well, that’s because they let him do it, isn’t it?” asked Shesgren.
“They haven’t any choice,” said Parker. “Every one here thinks he’s just about right on everything. He can’t do anything wrong. If he falls down hard once, and gets shown up in this business, he may have still enough to keep on being universal coach, but he won’t be a dictator, the way he has been. Anyhow, Phillips won’t captain the baseball team, and that will reduce Merriwell’s pull a little.”
He finished his drink and ordered another.
“Now, then,” he said, “are you two friendly with Phillips?”