“And now, Tom and Sid, you’ve got to train your heads off and be fit to the minute,” declared Holly. “Into the gym until it clears, and you won’t have any rest as soon as it’s dry enough to get on the track.”
“We’ll sacrifice ourselves on the altar of duty,” replied Tom, mockly-heroic.
“And you ought to be glad of the chance,” retorted Phil. “I wish I was in your place.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this trouble occurred,” said Frank to his two friends and some of the others as they were gathered in the room of the inseparables the afternoon of the day when the games were to have been held, and while it was still pouring. “I feel as if I ought to have spoken of the chance of the professional charge being brought against me, and then I could have kept out. But I never dreamed of it. There never would have been any question of Randall’s honor then.”
“And there isn’t now,” declared Kindlings sturdily. “It’s all right for those fellows to take the stand they did, but I don’t believe they were right in your case, Frank, and I don’t propose to let the matter rest there.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Phil, as he shook the alarm clock to cure it of a spasm of stopping that had developed that day. “Are you going to raise a row over it?”
“Not a row, but I’m going to write to the heads of the A. A. U. and state the case. Then I’m going to ask if Frank can be regarded as a professional. This can’t stop here. We need Frank for something else besides these games. We may have a rowing crew this year, or next; besides, there’s football and baseball to consider. I’m going to the bottom of this thing.”
“And I’m glad of it,” declared the Big Californian. “I don’t want this charge hanging over me, and if you hadn’t asked for a ruling I would. But it’s better to come from you, I guess.”
“And to think that now, if something hadn’t happened, we might be sitting here, trying to figure out how we lost, if the games had been held,” remarked Sid, as he listened to the rain.
It rained all the next day—Sunday—which had the effect of keeping the lads indoors, making them fret, for they were all lovers of fresh air, and were seldom in their rooms except to study or sleep. In the afternoon Tom and the other three, in their raincoats, braved the downpour, which had suddenly increased, and paid a visit to the girls at Fairview.