“Been betting some more?”
“Well, you see, I couldn’t help it. And I’ve about bet the mandolin.”
“How was that?”
“Well, you see, Rol Packard shook a fiver under my nose, and I told him I hadn’t any more money, but would put my mandolin against it.”
Starbright sighed.
“Dashleigh, you’ll bet the coat off your back next!”
“There are others! And I’ll be all right as soon as I get the money I’ve already won.”
Indeed, there were “others” of Merriwell’s friends who were as wild in their betting as Bert Dashleigh.
The game was to be called at half-past two o’clock. Before that hour the polo-rink was crowded with men and boys, Yale students and pretty girls, who were interestedly watching a preliminary match-game between two New London teams of amateurs.
Dashleigh’s mandolin club was there, in seats at one end of the big rectangular “surface,” thumping away in the intervals of play.