example and lighted a cigarette. "I"m going down to Bar Harbor, and play tennis on my vacation."
"I can"t endure tennis," drawled Browning.
"I should say not. Too much exertion for you."
"It is not that. I don"t like to be around where others are playing it."
"Don"t? Why not?"
"Because it is so noisy."
"Noisy? Christmas! How do you make that out?"
"Why, you can"t play it without a racket," said Browning.
Griswold staggered and clutched at his heart.
"What papers have you been reading?" he gasped.
Diamond spoke up for the first time:
"I"ll tell you what I"ll do, Merriwell--I"ll go on this bicycle trip across the continent, if I can secure my mother"s consent?"
"Will you?" cried Frank, eagerly. "Then see her as soon as possible. I couldn"t ask for a better fellow than you. Harry thinks he can go, and that makes three of us. We"ll do the trick, even if we can"t get another fellow. Is it agreed?"
"It is agreed if I can get my mother to agree to it," a.s.sured Jack.
"Well, let"s talk about another matter," said Bruce. "The tournament at Madison Square Garden is right upon us. Are you on for anything, Merriwell?"
"Yes," answered Frank, "I shall take part in several contests."
"How about the mile run?" questioned Diamond.
"I believe Yates is in for that," said Merriwell.
"That"s something I want to speak to you about," drawled Bruce.
Frank was rather surprised, as Browning had taken very little interest in athletics of late. During his early days at Yale, Bruce had been a pusher in athletic matters, being at that time an athlete himself, as he kept himself in form and held back the threatening development of flesh by the severest sort of training.
But Bruce could not continue to resist the temptations of his appet.i.te, and it became more and more difficult for him to keep in trim. As long as he was a freshman he had done so, but when he became a soph.o.m.ore he gradually abandoned the struggle.
Still he had remained active as a leader, and had been known at one time as "the King of the Soph.o.m.ores." His final effort at training had been when he put himself in condition to meet Merriwell in a four-round hard-glove contest.
The bout had been p.r.o.nounced a draw, but Browning afterward acknowledged that he must have been knocked out had it continued to a finish.
From that time Browning"s interest in athletic matters waned.
He lost ambition in that line, and he soon became so overburdened with flesh that nothing save a question of life or death could have induced him to go into training.
It was not so very long before Bruce was known as the champion lazy man at Yale. All that he seemed to care about was to eat, drink, smoke and loaf. He seldom was known to "grind," and his attempts at "skinning"
were pitiable failures.
Then he was dropped a cla.s.s, and, as he still stuck to Yale, he found himself arrayed with Merriwell and the fellows whom he at one time had regarded as enemies.
In that cla.s.s Merriwell was regarded as a leader in athletic matters, and Bruce seldom mentioned anything of the kind. Now, however, to Merriwell"s surprise, he displayed sudden interest in the great intercollegiate tournament to be held in Madison Square Garden, New York, directly at the close of the spring terms.
In the various contests Yale was to be represented by her best men.
There had been some uncertainty concerning the one who would wear Yale"s colors in the mile run, but the belief grew that Duncan Yates, a junior, would be the one finally settled on by the committee in charge of the matter.
"Why don"t you go into that race, Browning, old sylph?" grinned Danny Griswold. "You would astonish the public."
"Some time I"ll sit on you, runtie," growled Bruce.
Stubbs remarked:
"That will settle it, as the sugar observed when the egg dropped into the coffee."
Rattleton threw a slipper at Bink, who grunted as it struck him in the ribs, but serenely continued to smoke, his mottled face wrinkled into a quaint grimace.
"What is it that you want to say about the mile race, Browning?" asked Frank, his curiosity aroused.
"I want to say that I do not believe Yates is the proper man to represent Old Eli."
"He is fast, and he has a record."
"It"s no use to talk about his record."
"Why not?"
"Orton, of U. P., lays over him, and this will be a case of Yale against the field. Better men than Orton may show up."
"Yates may break his own record."
"That word "may" is all right, but it can be applied both ways. He may not."
"There"s Van Ta.s.sle," said Diamond. "He claims to be a record-breaker."
"A record-breaker!" sniffed Griswold. "Why, that fellow couldn"t break an egg!"
"That"s right," nodded Rattleton. "He breaks records with his mouth.
Don"t talk about him."
"Well, there are others," laughed Frank.
"Name a few of them," invited Browning, with more animation than he had displayed for some time.
"There"s Hickson."
"He"s stiff in the joints, as you know."