“My!” he muttered with a grin, “I’m getting to be an awful liar!” He frowned over some obtruding thought. Then he pushed open the recitation-room door with a violence that won him a scowl of annoyance from the professor.
“Nonsense!” he told himself, as he took his seat and opened his book; “Gray didn’t take it!”
[CHAPTER XV]
WAYNE RAISES A FLAG
March came in like a lion that spring and roared and raved over the river and about the dormitories and made life out of doors a hardship that few cared to brave. Ere it was a week old it had piled the ice in walls along the river banks, swept the green bare of snow, and snapped the tall flag post in front of Academy Building. Wayne and Don hugged the fireplace when not at recitations or in the gymnasium, and got a lot of studying done. Wayne’s ability to learn his lessons had increased of late, and he was ready to give credit to Professor Beck and the steady training he was undergoing. Physical exercise clears the brain, and Wayne discovered an improvement before he had been at work with the track squad for two weeks. He even began to speak tentatively of trying for a scholarship, and Don grinned and cunningly encouraged him by saying:
“Oh, well, you can try, of course. But I don’t believe you can make it. You won’t stick to it long enough; you’ll get tired of studying after a while.”
An assertion which Wayne indignantly denied.
“Just you wait and see! You needn’t think you and Paddy are the only fellows in school who can get scholarships!”