"Yes. Nothing better over there, I think."
"Then there will be no dead-easy business about it. They're not going to lie down and let us walk over them, just for the purpose of stiffening the spine of that Kansan!"
Jack Diamond was disgusted with the outlook.
"Have I said that they are easy?" Merriwell asked. "I only said I felt sure we could defeat them. And we can. Badger is a good pitcher. You know that. And if he loses his nerve, I shall very promptly take his place. There will be no monkeying. You are the fellows that seem to be in the notion of lying down."
"Oh, well play!" grunted Bruce. "We're just airing our little opinions. I expected to see you in the box Saturday, and I'm disappointed. I suppose that's all!"
He gave a tug at his pipe and rolled over lazily on the lounge, as if that settled it.
"Of course we'll play," agreed Diamond. "But I don't like to go into the game with Badger in the box. I don't like him. The fellow has made himself an insufferable nuisance. I don't agree with you that he is such a wonder. He's a very ordinary fellow, with a rich father and a swelled head. Out West, where he came from, everybody got down on their knees to him, and here at Yale that sort of business don't go. Nobody cares whether his father is a cattleman or a cow-puncher. He wants to be worshiped, and Yale isn't in the worshiping business. Consequently, he's sore all the time!"
Jack forgot that, when he arrived at Yale a few years ago, he expected homage on account of his family and pedigree.
"And I don't forget that he went aboard the Crested Foam blind drunk, and made an ass of himself generally!" said Bruce, rousing again.
"That's one reason Merry wants to give him a show!" said Rattleton. "Badger has an idea that everybody who knows about it feels just as you do, and Frank wants to show him that they don't. See?"