“Yes. If Broadwood wins you’re to give me a week at your place in New York at Christmas——”
“Ten days, if you like.”
“And if Broadwood loses I am to stand in front of Oxford Hall and cheer for Yardley and say something out of Shakespeare.”
“At five o’clock on the day of the game. And you’re to cheer and speak loud enough to be heard—er—at the farthest edge of the stupendous throng.”
“It’s a bargain,” agreed Cotton, with a grin. “I expect to have a pretty good time at recess. Much obliged. Now I’ll be going. I’m sort of sorry for you, though, Pennimore.”
“So shall I be if I lose,” laughed Gerald, as Cotton’s footsteps died away down the hall.
“What is it you want him to repeat?” asked Kendall.
“If he loses? Why, nothing but that famous passage from Mr. Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ You remember the words of our old friend Dogberry? ‘Masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass!’”