"Guess we forgot our manners," said Andy. "Have a chair. Frank and I will take the beds. Now fire away. We've never been to such a queer school as this, and we can't understand it."
"It's simple enough," explained Jack. "In the first place this is quite an old institution. I mean it was founded a long time ago, but of course most of the buildings are comparatively new—they don't look it but they are. Dr. Doolittle is a fine scholar, too. Probably more of a scholar than he is a business man, and the same thing can be said of the board of trustees. Some of them are old fogies, but I don't mean any disrespect. They simply don't know how to run things.
"The school used to be better than it is now. Then a lot of rich men's sons came here, and they had a fine rowing crew, a good eleven and a crackerjack nine. That's what I've been told, for of course it was before my time. This is my second year."
"How did you ever happen to come back?" asked Frank, "after you saw what it was?"
"I didn't want to, but dad figured out that as long as I was doing well in my studies it didn't make any difference whether I rowed on a crew or not."
"Do you row?" asked Andy eagerly.
"A little," admitted their visitor modestly.
"That's what we like," explained Frank. "We hoped we'd get a whack at it here, but—nixy I guess."
"We saw a dandy shell as we were coming up," went on the younger lad. "It was at some college below here."
"Yes, that was at Waterside Hall. They have a fine crew—in fact they have good teams in all lines. They used to be a rival of Riverview, but that was years ago. They don't even take the trouble to challenge us now."