“Why, your old crew is made up in a crazy manner!” declared Ready, who was a little touched and dropped his bantering style for a time. “You’ve got a coxswain as heavy as I am—yes, heavier than I am. What sort of crazy notion is that?”
“Don’t let it worry you,” advised Dick.
“It isn’t worrying me, fellow. It’s delighting my soul. If you are crazy to pull around that amount of dead weight in the stern of your boat, go ahead. But I don’t see how Merriwell can say you have a good crew. I think he is overworked, poor fellow! I fear I see in my mind’s eye an asylum for the insane looming darkly before him.”
“Sh!” said Bingham, with a cautioning motion toward Jack. “Don’t alarm him, or it may send him off at once. Say something soothing to him, Ready.”
“Don’t worry, gentlemen,” said Frank, standing up and stretching his splendid arms above his head. “I am sure I was never in better condition than at this minute, and I’m glad to be able to give a little time to the freshmen. I feel it my duty to give the time to the new class, just as I gave it to your class last year, Ready.”
“Don’t apologize! don’t apologize!” cried Jack. “It isn’t necessary. You had good stuff to work on last year; but just look at it this year! Oh, Laura! Think of a boat being pulled by such Indians as Starbright, Dashleigh, Morgan, and others of the same ilk, with a big duffer like Earl Knight in the stern! Merriwell, get Knight out of that boat! I beg—I implore you to do it! The poor freshmen! My tender heart bleeds for them, and their defeat will be bad enough without making it worse by giving them a man like that to drag around.”
“When he wants your advice I think he’ll ask for it!” snapped Dashleigh, who did not fancy this free-and-easy style of Ready with Merriwell.
“He may not know how bad he needs it till the race is over,” said Jack. “Besides that, if I remember correctly, he is not in the habit of asking much advice.”
“Why are you not going to row this year, Ready?” asked Carson.
“Oh, the boys wanted to give the freshmen a chance!” said Jack. “I was urged to row, but I said, ’What’s the use to make it a dead sure thing at the start?’ So they left me out. Besides, baseball is just about all I can attend to. I’m no steam-engine, like Merriwell. He’s the only one of his kind. He’s the only fellow I ever saw who was able to do anything and everything without ever making a muff. But he can’t make a winning freshman crew out of a lot of wooden cigar-store signs. Nay, nay, sweet one; ’tis impossible.”