“Well, if he makes them winners he will deserve the credit he will receive.  But he can’t do it.  No man can coach a crew and pull an oar at the same time.  The very fact that he is attempting such a thing shows he isn’t in the game.”

“Don’t be so sure.  They say he has a substitute who takes his place in the boat sometimes, and that gives him a chance to see just how the crew is working.”

“Rats!  Who ever heard of such a thing!  Merriwell is all right, but he doesn’t know anything about rowing.  He may think he knows, but he is fooling himself.”

“Well, we will have to wait and see about that.”

“I really believe you are afraid of Merriwell.  Why—­ha! ha! ha!—­you are the only one who has an idea the freshmen will be in the race at all.”

“I know it, but few have had any idea that the freshmen could do any of the things they have done.  They have fooled us right along, and—­”

“Oh, say!  Give me a cigarette and let’s drop it.  From the way you talk I should say you would make a good sporting editor for a Sunday-school paper.”

“That’s all right,” muttered Hartwick, sulkily, as he tossed Bruce a package of Turkish cigarettes.  “Wait and see if I am not right.”

After this Bruce went about telling all the sophomores what Hartwick thought, and urging them to “jolly him” whenever they could get a chance.  As a result Evan was kept in hot water the most of the time, but he persisted in claiming that the freshmen were bound to give them a surprise.

One evening a jolly party gathered in Browning and Hartwick’s rooms.  Cigarettes were passed around, and soon the smoke was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“How are the eggs down where you are taking your meals now, Horner?” asked Puss Parker.

“Oh, they are birds!” chirped little Tad, who was perched on the back of a chair, with his cap on the side of his head.

This produced a general laugh, and Parker said: 

“Speaking of birds makes me think that riches hath wings.  I dropped seventy-five in that little game last night.”

Punch Swallows groaned in a heartrending way.

“That’s nothing,” he said, dolefully.  “I lost a hundred and ten last week, and I’ve been broke ever since.  Wired home for money, but the gov didn’t respond.  After that game all I could think of was two pairs, three of a kind, bobtail flushes, and so on.  I made a dead flunk at recitations for two days.  The evening after I lost my roll I was to attend a swell affair up on Temple Street.  I was in a rocky condition, and I took something to brace me up, for I knew there would be pretty girls there, and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.  The memory of that horrible game was still with me, and whenever my mind wandered I was thinking of jack pots and kindred things.  Well, I went to the party, and there were plenty of queens there, but I didn’t seem to enjoy myself,