“Bet you you do,” replied Gus, untroubledly.
“Well, I’ll bet I don’t! At any rate, not until fall baseball’s through.” There was a moment’s silence during which Joe found his place in the book he had been studying. Then he added: “I’m sorry, Gus, of course, but you see how it is.”
“I thought you liked football,” said Gus. “You were crazy about it last fall.”
“I do like it. I’m crazy about it yet, I guess, even if I’ve proved to myself that I’m no player, but—”
“And now, just when you’re practically certain of making the team, you quit!”
“Practically certain of—say, are you crazy?”
“Well, aren’t you? You’re captain of the baseball team, aren’t you? Well, you ought to know what that means. If I went out for baseball next spring don’t you think I’d find a place, even if I was fairly punk? Sure, I would. Just because I’m football captain. Well, it works the other way, too, doesn’t it? Any coach will stretch a point to find a place for a fellow who’s captain in another sport. Rusty as good as said this afternoon that you’d get placed if you came out. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you’d play all the time, but you’d get a good show and you’d be sure of playing against Munson for a while anyway.”
“I call that a pretty sick piece of business,” replied Joe disgustedly. “And if you think it works always, why, you just try for the nine next spring! You’ll have a fat chance of making it if you can’t play real baseball, Gus!”
“Maybe,” chuckled Gus, “but if you left it to the coach he’d look after me all right!”
“Well, I don’t want a place on the football team that I don’t earn. And you can tell Rusty so, too. I’m not coming out, Gus, but if I did I wouldn’t take any favors like that. That’s—that’s crazy!”