"Well, look here, you chaps." Tom scowled intently for a moment. "Look here. It's this way. Josh put a bunch of us on pro, didn't he? Well, what right have I to go and ask to be let off just because I happen to be a football man? You don't suppose those other fellows like it any better than I do, do you?"
"Oh, forget that! I'm one of them, and I'm having the time of my life. It's been the making of me, Tom. I'm getting so blamed full of learning that I'll be able to loaf all the rest of the year; live on my income, so to say." And Amy beamed proudly.
"That's all right," answered Tom doggedly, "but I don't intend to cry-baby. I'm just as much in it as any of you. If Josh wants to let us all off, all right, but I'm not going to ask for a—a special dispensation!"
"You don't need to," said Tim. "Let the fellows do it. That has nothing to do with you. What's to keep us from going ahead and getting up a petition?"
"Because I ask you not to," replied Tom simply. "It's only fair that we should all be punished alike."
"We're not? Why aren't we?" asked Tom in surprise.
"Because you're getting it harder than Amy and Harry Westcott and the others," answered Don quietly. "They aren't barred from any sport, and you are."
"By Jove, that's a fact!" exclaimed Amy.
"But—but we all got the same sentence," protested Tom.