CHAPTER XIII.LEARNING TO RUN THE HUNDRED.
Frank was at the gymnasium at 2 o'clock the next afternoon, garbed in a running rig that the Codfish had given him.
"How did you come to have running clothes with you?" asked Frank, surprised when the Codfish produced from the recesses of his trunk a neat blue jersey and a pair of spotless running trousers.
"My fond papa said he thought I ought to take some exercise when he sent me up here. He told me he was a peach of a runner in his school days, and talked so much about the way he walloped every one in sight on the track that I got kind of ambitious, and let mother put these things in."
"Why don't you go out for running yourself? You ought to make a runner," and Frank gazed admiringly at the long legs which Gleason had spread out on the window seat, the lower parts of them dressed in gorgeous green socks.
"Oh, I don't like to fatigue myself. If I run I grow weary, and if I'm weary I must rest, and I'd much rather rest without being weary first. Don't feel backward about taking the duds, old chappie, because your Uncle Dudley will never put them on. If they had something like a 15-yard dash I might get out and make a record or two myself, but since the shortest distance is a hundred yards and the longest is a mile, I guess I'll put my spare time in some other way."
"And how about your father's ambitions for you?"
"Oh, dad won't mind. I don't believe he was much of a runner anyway. He just lets his imagination carry him away."
So Frank became the possessor of a fine outfit, and wore it that afternoon with considerable pride. Patsy nodded pleasantly as he came onto the track. "See you're on time," he said. "Now jog around the track very easily two or three times just to get limbered up, and then we will have a few starts with Collins and you. Felt sore this morning, did you?"