"Slow? How do you mean?" asked Frank Racer.
"I mean in regard to athletics. He wasn't so much impressed by the buildings being out of condition and all that, but I hear that when he saw the diamond all overgrown with weeds, and the gridiron all but invisible, and the boathouse a wreck, he threw up the sponge."
"I don't blame him," remarked Andy. "It's partly our fault. We fellows ought to do something."
"But what can we do?" asked Ward Platt. "We can't start a football eleven without some money, and I know I can't put up much cash."
"We don't need much," insisted Andy. "We ought to be able to get up some sort of a crew or eleven and challenge Waterside Hall or Milton Academy."
"What! Challenge those fellows?" cried several.
"Yes, why not?" Frank wanted to know, with an air of quiet determination.
"They'd only laugh at us," was Jack's opinion.
"Let 'em laugh then," said Andy. "We can stand it if they can. Say, you fellows may be used to this sort of thing," and he waved his hand around the diamond, over which they were walking, "but my brother and I are not. We're used to doing things; eh, Frank?"
"That's what. And we'll do 'em now. If there was only some way we could get up a contest. Isn't there an old football around here?"