“But you’d be fired off the crew if anybody found out you were drinking fizzes in here.”
“So I’d be fired if anybody found out I was here talking with you. Might as well go the whole hog, to use an elegant phrase. So I’m going to drink, and I’m going to have a smoke.”
The slide went back and the barkeeper appeared with the drinks. Snodgrass paid for them and placed them on the table. Then the slide slammed again, and they were alone.
“I’m a little thirsty myself,” said Snodgrass, taking up the ginger ale.
“Let me get my face into that fizz!” exclaimed Arnold.
When he had drained the glass, he lighted a cigarette, and elevated his feet to the top of the table.
“I’m tired,” he declared. “It tells on me, this infernally hard work Merriwell is giving us. The fellow seems to think we’re made of iron—like himself.”
“He must be made of iron to do all the things he does,” said Snodgrass; “but I am not stuck on him much, for I know he kept me off the varsity last year.”
“What? Why, you were a freshman.”
“I don’t care,” growled Ben, scowling. “I was a better man than some who made the eight, but Merriwell ran in his particular friends, just as he has run them onto the nine this year. He had a pull then.”