"Call it off, Larry," moaned the Hope of the Flying Heart. "I've been poisoned!"
"Poisoned, eh?" said the fat man, tremulously. "Poisoned! Nix! Not with me!" He walked firmly across the room, flung back the lid of Speed's athletic trunk, and began to paw through it feverishly. One after another he selected three heavy sweaters, then laid strong hands upon his protege and jerked him to his feet. "Sick, eh? Here, get into these!"
"What do you mean, Lawrence?" inquired his victim.
"If you get sick, I die." Glass opened the first sweater, and half-smothered his protege with it. "Hurry up! You're going into training!"
CHAPTER XI
That was a terrible hour for J. Wallingford Speed. As for Larry, once he had grasped the full significance of the telegram, he became a different person. Some fierce electric charge wrought a chemical alteration in his every fibre; he became a domineering, iron-willed autocrat, obsessed by the one idea of his own preservation, and not hesitating to use physical force when force became necessary to lessen his peril.
Repeatedly Speed folded his arms over his stomach, rocked in the throes of anguish, and wailed that he was perishing of cramps; the trainer only snorted with derision. When he refused to don the clothes selected for him, Glass fell upon him like a raging grizzly.
"You won't, eh? We'll see!" Then Speed took refuge in anger, but the other cried:
"Never mind the hysterics, Bo. You're going to run off some blubber to-day."
"But I have to go riding!"