“Nothing,” shouted all the boys. “It’s the very thing.”
“Well, then, in order to accustom ourselves to the movements and evolutions, let every fellow bring his rollers next Thursday night, and we will see what we can do with them.”
The boys thought it the best thing they had ever heard of, but Scott had a suggestion to make.
“Why can’t we rent the rink for a few nights?” said he. “This armory is hardly large enough, and besides, the floor isn’t as smooth as it might be.”
“We could engage the rink, of course,” replied the captain. “But if we do, the Toxophilites will find out what is going on, and we don’t want them to know any thing about it.”
“Why, as to that, they are bound to know about it,” said Tom. “We can’t keep it from them. You know what a fearful noise rollers make, don’t you?”
“Well, we can’t help that,” answered Frank. “If we do our drilling here, they can’t look through the windows and see what we are about, as they could if we drilled at the rink. Now, if you want to go into this, you must be on hand every night. I will promise to get you in fine trim by the time the ice is in condition, if you will only attend to business.”
“I wonder if we couldn’t get up a competitive drill with the Toxophilites?” said Loren.
“Not much,” replied Prime, with a laugh. “There are too many raw recruits among us.”
“We’ll wait and give them a pull for something at the next canoe meet,” said Tom.