I concluded with, "The verdict is that, unless I have some good reason to change my mind, Seever's name will certainly be scratched."
At this there was a dead silence. Shack looked at Seever questioningly, then shook his head, and began to whistle "Ben Bolt" in a particularly dismal manner.
When I found they had nothing more to say, I resumed my examination of the list of entries to the first big "Indoor Athletic Games" of the season. I had just received it from the "official handicapper," and was considerably interested to find what my men had been given. They figured in every handicap, and in the "forty-yard novice" there were no less than fourteen of them, nearly all Freshmen, with two or three who would show a turn of speed. There were a few I did not intend should run, among them Seever, for the reasons I had already given.
These games are a perfect godsend to a trainer, coming as they do at a time when it is very hard to keep the men up to their work. The gymnasium is indispensable in a country where from December to April the cinder-path is either hard with frost or white with snow. But when a man has done his fifteen minutes at the pulley weights for the hundredth consecutive afternoon, he finds the excitement of "One, two, three, four, five, six," begins to pall on him, and by the last of February even "practising starts" loses its charms. It is then the circuit of a billiard-table becomes the favorite track work, and the digestion of a good dinner the principal muscular exercise.
I had checked off about half the names, finding few surprises, when the quiet of my room was broken by the entrance of a dozen fellows who had just learned of the arrival of the list. Did you ever hear the work of that very conscientious gentleman the "official handicapper" discussed by a crowd of contestants? Of half a dozen men perhaps one is pleased and says so, two or three have no fault to find but do nevertheless grumble out of principle, and the remainder "kick like veteran mules," and blackguard in shameful fashion the man whose only sin has been to overrate their abilities.
"What's this?" cried Ferris, a high jumper, looking over my shoulder. "I get only four inches, and Bob here gets six. That's highway robbery, and I don't care who knows it. He did five-eight to my five-seven only yesterday."
"Here's little Larry with five yards in the 'forty,'" spoke up Shack, who had monopolized the view from my right side, his broad shoulders shutting off all the rest; "the infant won't do a thing to them, will he?"
"What do you get yourself?" inquired Turner, who was bigger than Shack, but not quite quick enough to get a place of vantage.
"That's what I ought to be looking for," answered Shack, "but I always think of others first. They'll put something of that kind on my tombstone. Where's the 'shot'?" He ran his big finger down the page, remarking meanwhile, "I gave Jones [the handicapper] a good cigar only last week, and told him that I had not been myself the whole winter." Shack said this with a deep sigh, as if he well knew he was threatened with an early decline. "I expect to find nothing less than the same old eight feet for yours truly." His finger suddenly stopped, as he said this, and then straightening himself with an energy that sent two or three men flying backward, he exclaimed: "Great Jupiter! Look at that! Only look at that! And 'twas a good cigar too. He gives me just four feet, the least of any of you, and Turner here, who tied me this afternoon, gets the eight instead." At this there was a big laugh at Shack, whose woes were a joke to all.
Down the list they went until all were informed, and then they gradually sifted out, leaving Seever and Shack still with me. I could not understand why they stayed, for they knew well enough that further argument would be useless; but I paid no attention to them, going on with my checking.