“Once?” cried Gilberth. “Great Scott, I’ve cut four times!”
“Well, you’d better quit it, Tracy,” Joe remonstrated, “or they’ll be putting you on probation, and then we’ll be beaten, sure as fate!” He turned to Jack. “Come to the room with me and then I’ll go out with you.”
“You’re not allowed out there this morning,” cried Tracy. “Hanson said I was to keep you away until the game.”
“You can’t,” Joe replied quietly. “Besides, I’m feeling fine now, and it would give me the horrors to have to mope around the college while you fellows were enjoying yourselves.”
“Enjoying ourselves!” Tracy grumbled. “You’ve got a queer notion of enjoyment. If you think I’m happy when Hanson is throwing it into me because I don’t hold my bat the way they did when he was a boy, you’re away off, Joe.”
“Well, I’m going out, anyhow,” Joe answered. Suddenly, just as they reached the corner of the yard, he turned to Anthony. “I say, Tidball, I wish you’d tell me what you two were doing at the Cove. I—I’ve got a reason for wanting to know.”
Jack shot an admonitory glance at his friend, but Anthony didn’t see it; perhaps he didn’t want to. He looked gravely back at Joe and replied:
“All right, Perkins, I’ll tell you. I was teaching Jack how to swim.”
“Anthony!” cried Jack, the color flooding into his cheeks. “You promised!”