"Ho, ho!" laughed the officer, "you look it. Did you run all the way from New York?"
"I am one of the competitors," said Frank, emphasizing every word, "and through an accident got left at Brighton. Please let me go to the training quarters of the American team."
"Well, 'ere's a rum cove. Comes up 'ere and wants to get passed into the gymes for nothink."
For a few minutes it looked as if, after all his trouble to get to the Club grounds, he was to be held up outside while his chance was lost. Finally, however, he induced the officer to send a messenger to the American quarters, and in half a minute he was snatched through the gate by an assistant trainer and stood in the presence of Captain Harrington, who was just going out for his quarter.
The captain looked him over with cold, hard eyes. "You're a little late," he said. "We don't bring men across the Atlantic to have them late for the beginning of a track meet. You are no value to us. We will not need you."
Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Harrington interrupted sharply with "I don't want to hear excuses," and passed on to the start of his event. Frank did not have the heart even to look at the race which was slated to go to the Americans through the superior ability of the Yale captain. Trainer Black looked up when he entered the building, but said nothing. Frank felt as if he had been thrown into outer darkness. He ground his teeth in impotent rage and dropped into a chair, listening in a half-hearted way to the little volley of spontaneous cheering which drifted through the window.
"What's that?" cried Trainer Black, and dashed out the door. "Sounds like an English cheer!"
An English cheer it was, and it announced the victory of a Cambridge "dark horse" who had run the Yale quarter-mile champion off his feet in the stretch. A minute later Harrington staggered into the room, and threw himself face downward on a table.
"This loses us the meet," said a rubber in a whisper. "To think that Harrington should lose out, of all people. He loafed too much in the first part of the race and couldn't hold the sprint at the end. It was a foxy trick the Englishman worked, but a fair win enough."
"Where's Armstrong, where's Armstrong?" came the excited call by Trainer Black.