"Never was any good," interpolated Amy.
"And Roberts and Marvin——"
"Carmine's better!"
"And Kendall and Harris!" concluded Tim triumphantly.
"Never mind, Timmy, you've still got me!" replied Amy sweetly. "Gee, to hear you rave you'd think the whole team had graduated!"
"So it has, practically!"
"Ah, yes, and I heard the same dope this time last year. We'd lost Miller and Sawyer and Williams and—and Milton and a dozen or two more and there wasn't any hope for us! And all we did was to go ahead and dodder along and beat Claflin seven to nothing! Not so bad for a lifeless corpse, what?"
Steve Edwards laughed. "Well, maybe we do talk trouble a good deal about this time of year. It's natural, I guess. You lose fellows who played fine ball last year and you can't see just at first how anyone can fill their places. Someone always does, though. That's the bully part of it. I dare say we'll manage to dodder along, as Amy calls it, and rub it into old Claflin as we've been doing."
"First sensible word I've heard tonight," said Amy approvingly. "I wouldn't kick so much if I only had to hear this sort of stuff occasionally, but I'm rooming with the original crêpe-hanger! Clint sobs himself to sleep at night thinking how terribly the dear old team's shot to pieces. If I remark in my optimistic, gladsome way, 'Clint, list how sweetly the birdies sing, and observe, I prithee, the sunlight gilding yon mountain peak,' Clint turns his mournful countenance on me and chokes out something about a weak backfield! Say, I'm gladder every day of my life that I stayed sane and——"
"Stayed what?" exclaimed Jim Morton incredulously.