Going Some Part 15

"Chest-weight--chest-developer."

"Oh!" Stover examined the device curiously, "I thought a chest- developer came in a bottle."

Fresno explained the operation of the apparatus, at which the cow-man remarked, admiringly: "That young feller is all right, ain't he?"

"Think so?"

"Sure! Don't you?"

Fresno explained his doubts by a crafty lift of his brows and a shrug. "I thought so--at first."

Stover wheeled upon him abruptly. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing."

After a pause the foreman remarked, vaguely, "He's the intercollegit champeen of Yale."

"Oh no, hardly that, or I would have heard of him."

"Ain't he no champeen?"

"Champion of the running broad smile and the half-mile talk perhaps."

"Ain't he a foot-runner?"

"Perhaps. I've never seen him run, but I have my doubts."

"Good Lord!" moaned Stover, weakly.

"He may be the best sprinter in the country, mind you, but I'll lay a little bet that he can't run a hundred yards without sustenance."

"Without what?"

"Sustenance--something to eat."

"Well, we've got plenty for him to eat," said the mystified foreman.

"You don't understand. However, time will tell."

"But we ain't got no time. We've made this race 'pay or play,' a week from Sat.u.r.day, and the bets are down. We was afraid the Centipede would welsh when they seen who we had, so we framed it that-away. What's to be done?"

Again Fresno displayed an artistic restraint that was admirable.

"It's none of my business," said he, with a careless shrug.

"I--I guess I'll tell Willie and the boys," vouchsafed Bill apprehensively.

"No! no! Don't breathe a word I've said to you. He may be a crackerjack, and I wouldn't do him an injustice for the world.

All the same, I wish he hadn't broken my stop-watch."

"D'you think he broke it a-purpose?"

"What do you think?"

Stover mopped the sweat from his brow.

"Can't we time him with a ordinary watch?"

"Sure. We can take yours. It won't be exact, but--"

"I ain't got no watch. I bet mine last night at the Centipede.

Willie's got one, though."

"Mind you, he may be all right," Fresno repeated, rea.s.suringly; then hearing the object of their discussion approaching with his trainer, the two strolled out through the bunk-room, Stover a prey to a new-born suspicion, Fresno musing to himself that diplomacy was not a lost art.

"You're a fine friend, you are!" Speed exploded, when he and Gla.s.s were inside the gymnasium. "What made you say 'yes'?"

"I had to."

"Rot, Larry! You played into Fresno's hands deliberately! Now I've got to spend my evenings in bed while he sits in the hammock and sings _Dearie_." He shook his head gloomily. "Who knows what may happen?"

"It will do you good to get some sleep, Wally."

"But I don't want to sleep!" cried the exasperated suitor. "I want to make love. Do you think I came all the way from New York to sleep? I can do that at Yale."

"Take it from me, Bo, you've got plenty of time to win that dame.

Eight hours is a workin' day anywhere."

"My dear fellow, the union hours for courting don't begin until 9 P.M. I've got myself into a fine mess, haven't I? Just when Night spreads her sable mantle and Dan Cupid strings up his bow, I must forsake my lady-love and crawl into the hay. Oh, you're a good trainer!"

"You'd better can some of this love-talk and think more about foot-racin'."

"It can't be done! Nine o'clock! The middle of the afternoon.

It's rather funny, though, isn't it?" Speed was not the sort to cherish even a real grievance for any considerable time. "If it had happened to anybody else I'd laugh myself sick."

Gla.s.s chuckled. "The whole thing is a hit. Look at this joint, for instance." He took in their surroundings with a comprehensive gesture. "It looks about as much like a gymnasium as I look like a contortionist. Why don't you get a Morris chair and a mandolin?"

"There are two reasons," said Speed, facetiously. "First, it takes an athlete to get out of a Morris chair; and, second, a mandolin has proved to be many a young man's ruin."

Gla.s.s examined the bow of ribbon upon the lonesome piece of exercising apparatus.

"It looks like the trainin'-stable for the Colonial Dames. What a yelp this place would be to Covington or any other athlete."

"It is not an athletic gymnasium." Speed smiled as he lighted a cigarette. "It is a romantic gymnasium. As Socrates once observed--"

"Socrates! I'm hep to him," Gla.s.s interrupted, quickly. "I trained a Greek professor once and got wised up on all that stuff. Socrates was the--the Hemlock Kid."

"Exactly! As Socrates, the Hemlock Kid, deftly put it, '_In hoc signature vintage_.'"

"I don't get you."