“Oh, I’m not much. I suppose there are lots of entries, eh?”
“Only about sixteen, I think. You’re one of the upper middle relay team, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m to run last, I believe. I hope we beat the seniors,” laughed Trevor.
“I guess I’ve got more reason to want to win than you,” responded Stewart. “My father and mother are coming up for the meet. We live in Poughkeepsie, you know; I’d like awfully to win that two-twenty, but I guess I won’t.”
“Well, I don’t think you need be afraid of me,” said Trevor; “I feel rather rusty to-day. Fact is, you know, I’m a bit too heavy on my legs for sprints, I fancy. I think I’ll chuck it after Saturday night; I’m going to try for the crew.”
“Are you?” said Stewart admiringly. “You look as though you’d make a cracking good oar. I sometimes think I’d like to try for the crew; perhaps I can year after next; Beck doesn’t want me to now, he says.”
“Doesn’t want you to? Do you mean he’s forbid you?”
“N-no, he hasn’t forbidden me; but I always do as he tells me. You see”—Stewart paused in the middle of a struggle with a white sweater—“Beck’s done all sorts of things for me. Why, when I came here a year ago last fall I only weighed about eighty pounds; I was always tired, and didn’t have any—any ambition for anything; used to sit in my room and read. Of course there’s no harm in reading, but I didn’t seem to do anything else; Gray—I room with him over in the village—Gray used to call me the ‘White Mouse.’ I guess I was a pretty poor-looking youngster. Well, Professor Beck got hold of me one day and induced me to take up a course of training; of course I’d been doing my two days a week here at the weights and things, but I always shirked and got tired, and it never did me any good, I guess. But Beck made me take walks, wouldn’t let me eat anything but what was on a list he gave me, and put me at weights. Finally he got me to try jumping, and then running. I liked running right away. First thing I knew I couldn’t get enough to eat, it seemed; used to be hungry every meal. Then I entered the four hundred and forty yards last winter at the indoor meeting and came in second. After that I couldn’t run enough. I won the four hundred and forty at the handicap meet in the spring, and wanted to go to the Interscholastic Meet, only Beck said I’d better wait until this year. Of course I’m not a Samson yet, but I’m about two hundred per cent better than I was a year or so ago. And—and Beck did it. And that’s why I do what he says.”
“I see,” answered Trevor. “Well, Beck knows his business. You look about as fit as any chap I’ve seen here, and I don’t blame you for giving under to him. By the way, Gray’s the baseball captain, isn’t he? Rather tall, thin chap?”