“That’s why they want to run you in captain.”
“Think so?”
“Know so. I’m willing to bet Phil Hardy paid that doctor something to forbid him from playing. Hardy is a sharp one. He saw Yale stood no show, and he was sick. He wanted to get out, and he took that way of crawling.”
Frank shook his head.
“I don’t want to think that of Hardy,” he soberly said. “I don’t want to think any man that much a sneak. No, Rattles, you are dead wrong about Phil.”
“I’m red dight—I mean dead right!” excitedly declared Harry. “You have too much confidence in human nature. You never will think a man crooked till it is proven for you, and then you don’t like to believe it.”
“What’s the use?” said Frank, quietly. “I dislike to have my confidence in human nature shattered—I refuse to have it shattered. I know there is more good than bad in the world. The person who is forever looking for the bad is the one who never sees the good, and he has no one but himself to blame. I am no pessimist.”
“But you are a thundering fool sometimes!” blurted Rattleton. “I don’t care a continental if you punch my head for saying so, but you are a fool sometimes!”
Instead of showing anger at these plain words, Frank beamed in a sunny manner, his red lips parting to show his gleaming white teeth.
“You are jolly original to-day, old man,” he said, merrily. “You surprise me.”