"And look at your school buildings!" Frank continued. "Why, some of them are dangerous, and the rooms we fellows have are worse than some tenements. It's a wonder you have any pupils at all. I'm not saying it's your fault, Dr. Doolittle. We all like you—there isn't a fellow here who doesn't think you're the finest scholar there is—but that doesn't make a school. You've got to have a sporting and a school spirit. I know, for I've been to other schools.
"And now about this fight. I'll tell you how it happened. When my brother and I came here we wanted to get up a rowing crew. It was hard work, for there wasn't anything to start with, but we did manage to find an old four-oared shell, and we patched it up. Then we practiced hard, my brother, Jack Sanderson, Ward Platt and myself.
"I won't deny but what there was bad feeling between Gerald Welter and myself. I claim it was his fault, but we needn't discuss that now." Frank was talking broadly and with an ease at which he wondered afterward. But; as he said, he felt that it was his last chance and he determined that Dr. Doolittle should know the truth.
"We had hard work using the old shell," Frank went on, "and we had harder work getting Waterside to accept our challenge. But they finally did, and the race was arranged. Then last night—the night before it was to take place—I saw Welter trying to damage our shell, because of his grudge against me. I stopped him after he had made one knife jab in it, and then—well we did fight and I whipped him. We fixed the shell, and what's more we won the race with Waterside. To-day Riverview school is champion of the river in the four-oared class!"
Frank bowed as he finished. He was about to leave the room, for he had no other thought but that he would be expelled. But he had had the satisfaction of speaking his mind.
"That's all I have to say," he concluded. "We tried to do our best to make your dead school into a live one."
"But it's awful dead yet," added Andy, as he prepared to follow his brother.
"Stop a moment!" exclaimed Dr. Doolittle. He was rubbing his eyes. He sat up straight in his chair. The look of dreamy wonder had gone from his face. His eyes sparkled. "Did I understand you to say that you won the race—that Riverview is—er—once more champion—as she once was?"
"She is," said Frank briefly.
"Then, boys, I want to congratulate you!" cried the doctor enthusiastically. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart!"