“Think you can row?” Sid wanted to know.
“What’s the good of rowing if Boxer walks away from us like that?” demanded Tom, fiercely. “That’s what I’ve been putting up to you fellows all evening, and you never opened your mouths. We’re going to lose, I can see that. What’s the good of trying?”
He was so bitter—it was so unlike Tom’s usually cheery self—that his chums looked at one another in some alarm. As the pitcher went to the bathroom to get some arnica for a slight bruise that had resulted from the chair’s collapse, Sid murmured:
“I guess Boswell has gotten on his nerves.”
“How Boswell?” asked Frank.
“Ruth,” Sid further enlightened him.
“Don’t you believe it,” broke in Phil. “Sis wouldn’t have anything to do with Bossy, while Tom was around.”
“Talking about me?” suspiciously demanded the tall pitcher, entering the room at that moment.
“Oh, nothing serious,” replied Phil, coolly. “We were just wondering what gave you the grouch.”
“Grouch! Wouldn’t anyone have a grouch if he’d practiced in the shell all Summer, and rowed his heart out, only to be beaten by Boxer—and not in a regular race, either? Wouldn’t he?”