“Haynes?” asked Jack interestedly. “What did he have to say?”
“Oh, nothing much. Said he thought he ought to get in touch with me and hoped I was having a pleasant vacation and all that. Suggested my meeting him in New York and talking things over, but I couldn’t make it. The date he set was just the time we were starting off on the cruise.”
“Too bad,” murmured Jack.
“Oh, I don’t know. What’s the good of talk? There wasn’t anything to be done until we got the team together. I hope to goodness he isn’t going to be one of the talky kind: his letter looked that way: he wrote about four pages, I guess. Said he hoped I was keeping in good condition and wasn’t neglecting kicking.” Stuart chuckled. “I haven’t touched a football but once since spring practice. Then we had a sort of a game up at the camp one day. A lot of the college chaps were football men: Means of Cornell, and Davis of Dartmouth, and five or six others. We had quite a scrappy little game. Played two twenty-minute periods. Of course the counselors won, but they had to work for it. I played quarter and got off two dandy runs, one for nearly seventy yards.”
“You ought to have put in some practice, just the same, Stuart,” said Jack disapprovingly. “It wouldn’t have done any harm.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I’ve been at it pretty steadily for the last month.”
“Faithful old Fido!” laughed Stuart. “Well, I don’t believe in it. A fellow comes back much fitter and more ready for work if he doesn’t wear himself out during the summer. I don’t think it hurts you any, for you’re a shark for work, and always were, but I get stale if I overdo it. Bet you I’ll show more pep to-morrow than the fellows who have been summer training.”
“Maybe,” answered Jack, smiling but unconvinced. “Still, pep isn’t everything. I’ll bet you can’t kick five goals out of ten tries from the thirty-yard line to-morrow.”
“What of it?” laughed Stuart. “I’ll be able to next week. Look here, what’s the good of bringing the team back five days before term opens if they’re going to know it all before they come? That’s what the early session’s for, to get us back in shape.”