"Tell you what," said Creighton, as he returned to Pierson and the others of the little group, "Merriwell is sore."
"Sore?" cried Tom Thornton, "he can't be any sorer than I am! Why, I was jumped on, kicked, rammed into the earth, and annihilated more than twenty times during that game. A little more of it would have made a regular jellyfish out of me. I'll be sore for a month, but I believe in being jolly at the same time."
Then he broke forth into a song of victory, in which every one in that car seemed to join, judging by the manner in which the chorus was roared forth.
"Boom-to-de-ay, boom-ta-de-ay,
Boom-to, de-boom-ta, de-boom-ta-de-ay;
We won to-day, we won to-day,
We won, oh, we won, oh, we won to-day."
Any one who has not heard a great crowd of college lads singing this chorus cannot conceive the volume of sound it seems to produce. When they all "bear down together" on the "boom-ta," the explosive sound is like a staggering blow from the shoulder.
But even this song of victory did not seem to arouse Frank in the least. He remained silent and grim, being so much unlike his usual self that all who knew him were filled with astonishment.
"I did not mean that he was sore of body," said Creighton. "I think he is chewing an old rag."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you know, we all gave him the marble heart when we thought he had decided not to play football because he was afraid for certain reasons. I think he is sore over that, and I don't know that I blame him. I swear, fellows, we did use him shabby!"
"That's it," nodded Pierson; "that's just it. And he is proud and sensitive. He would not show he cared a continental before the game, but, now he was the means of saving the day for Yale, I fancy he is chewing over it a little."