"Just the same," muttered Clint, when he had stopped laughing, "I'm scared. And I do wish Robey had let me alone."
"Coward!" taunted Amy. "Quitter! Youth of chilly extremities!"
"I'll have to learn new signals, too. And that's a beast of a job, Amy."
"Sluggard! Lazy-bones! Dawdler!"
"Shut up! I wish it was you, by ginger!"
"If it was me," replied Amy, "do you think I'd be sitting there clasping my hands agonisedly? Not much I wouldn't be sitting there handing my clasp ango--Well, I wouldn't! I'd be out on the Row with my head up and my thumbs in the pockets of my vest; only I haven't any vest on; and I'd be letting folks know what had happened to me. You don't deserve the honour of making the 'varsity in your fourth year, Clint. You don't appreciate it. Why, look at poor old Freer. He's been trying to make himself a regular for three years and he's still just a substitute!"
"That's what I'll be," said Clint. "You don't suppose, do you, that they're going to put me in the first line-up?"
"Well, not for a day or two," answered Amy airily. "But after that you'll be a regular feature of the day's entertainment. And, zowie, how the second will lay for you and hand it to you! They'll consider you a traitor, a renegade, a--a backslider, Clint, and they'll go after you hard. Better lay in a full supply of arnica and sterilised gauze and plaster, my noble hero, for you'll get yours all right, all right!"
"I don't see why they need to look at it that way," objected the other. "I didn't want to leave the second!"
"But they won't believe it, Clint. I'm sorry for you, but the path of glory is indeed hard!"