“Merriwell’s friends are greedy.”
“They want him to have all the glory.”
“He can’t rob Ready!”
“These freshies make me sick!” said Ned Moon. “If one of them happens to do a little something, they raise a great howl over it.”
Other sophomores expressed themselves in a similar manner, and, before long, there was considerable excitement. The sophs gathered swiftly, and the freshmen saw what was coming, so they did not wait, but took the offensive. Locking arms about each other, they made a rush to break up the meeting, and they swept the sophomores down, after a stout resistance. Then the freshmen, in a great body, marched about singing and shouting. Jack Ready was found, and he was placed at their head. Some of them caught him up and carried him around the campus. A poetical freshman composed some doggerel, and soon it seemed that the entire body was chanting:
“Ready, Ready, he is heady,
He’s a peach!
He’s a hummer, he’s a comer,
As a runner, he’s a stunner—
He’s a peach!