“I don’t think so.”
“Besides, the material is not here to make a corking nine. You can’t make a first-class ball team out of second-class material.”
“I believe the material is here,” said Merry, quietly; “but I do not think it is all on the nine. I got Hodge on, and now I am going to have Browning.”
“Oh, come, Merry!” gasped Bruce. “I’ll do almost anything for you, but I can’t torture myself to work off flesh in a hurry. Besides, I could not get enough off to——”
“You can get off enough in ten days so you will be able to play ball all right. I want you for your batting. Batters count. You are a good hitter, and the team is weak at the bat. It’s no use, Bruce; I want you, and am going to have you. You must quit drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. You must go into training to-morrow, and you must work hard to get off superfluous flesh. One week from Saturday you go on the nine.”
It was useless for Browning to beg; Merry had decided, and the big fellow could not get out of it.
“I wouldn’t do it for any other man living,” declared the lazy student; “but I suppose I’ll have to for you. You are a perfect tyrant, anyway. What you say goes.”
“And what he says is right,” declared the confident Hodge.
“Then I will say right here,” spoke Frank, with quiet assurance, “that Yale will have a nine that will be the surprise of the season. We are going after that pennant, and Princeton and Harvard will have to hustle to win.”
Hodge nodded. He was thinking of Merriwell’s marvelous double-shoot.