“Oh, nonsense, Rob,” Wright protested, “it isn’t as bad as that. I’ll acknowledge that they haven’t any business doing a stunt of that sort, but every fellow takes it as a sort of joke; just as they’re beginning to take Hop and Prentiss and the team, too. I wouldn’t care a rap whether my name had a red line through it or not.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t, but there are plenty who would; young fellows in the prep class, for instance. Lots of them don’t have more than a quarter of a dollar a week for pocket-money and to ask them to contribute to the football team is rank foolishness. There’s one name on that list that hasn’t got a red line through it, though, and it won’t have; and that’s the name of Robert Langton, Esquire.”
“Langton, you’re a dandy hater, aren’t you?” said Peterson with a laugh.
“I wasn’t going to give anything,” said Jelly, “but every one was looking, and so—”
“You conceited little fat rascal!” exclaimed Wright. “Why, I don’t suppose any one knew you were in the hall!”
“That’s all right,” answered Jelly imperturbably. “Anyway, I gave them a dollar and I wish I hadn’t.”
“Isn’t it worth that to keep your place on the Second?” asked Rob. “You know very well, Jelly, you’d get fired if you didn’t pay up. I’m not sure that, as a member of the Second Team, you shouldn’t have given a good deal more than a dollar.”
“I’ll give them another dollar when Gus Devens puts me in the first line-up,” said Jelly shrewdly. “One’s enough for a substitute, though.” The others laughed.
“For my part,” said Wright, “I feel rather sorry for Hop. He really wants to win this year and I dare say he’s doing the best he knows how, although it may not be a very good best. Seems to me we ought to give him enough money to go ahead with.”
“Rot! They’ve got enough now!” Rob helped himself to another potato. “It doesn’t need new jerseys and sweaters to win from Adams; it needs football sense. And that’s something neither Hop nor Prentiss has got. Why, I’d be willing to wager anything I’ve got that Mountfort will make our team look like a set of cripples this afternoon.”