Dick laughingly held back from the packing case until Badger and
Thomp lifted him bodily and stood him on top of the box.
"And cut it short, and make it practical," admonished Ted Butler, "or take the dire consequences!"
"Why, I don't know, gentlemen of the football team, that it's much of an idea," Dick began, "but my chums and I have been thinking over the complaint of the Athletics Committee that you haven't as much money, this season, as you'd like."
"Money?" echoed one. "Now, you're whispering. Whoop!"
"Money—-the root of all evil!" shouted another.
"Get wicked!" adjured a third.
"What my friends and I had to suggest," Dick went on, "was that, as we understand it, the folks of the town don't contribute much cash for upholding the fame of High School athletics."
"The School Alumni Association does pretty well in that line," replied Edgeworth. "The public in general do pretty well by buying tickets rather liberally to our games. It's the expenses that are the great trouble. You see, Prescott, instead of maintaining one team, we really have to support two, for the subs are necessary in order to give us practice. Then the coach's expenses are heavy. Now, the Alumni Association owns our athletic field, but a lot of lumber and carpenter work is needed there every year, making repairs and putting in improvements. Then, when we play high school teams at a distance from here the railroad expenses eat up enormously."
"And we have to play mostly teams at a good distance from here," laughed Ben Badger, "for we've played the nearby elevens time and again, and Gridley has eaten up the other fellows in such big gulps that we have to get on dates, these days, with teams so far away that they don't know much about us."
"But there's plenty of money in the town," replied Dick. "The business men have some of it. The wealthy people have a lot of it, too. It is a Gridley brag that the people of this city are public spirited to the last gasp. Now, if you can get public spirit and money on good speaking terms there wouldn't need to be any lack of funds for High School athletics."