“Come around to the gym to-night,” suggested the football player. “We’re going to have a little practice at the dummy. You fellows look as though you liked athletics.”
They had brought their gymnasium suits with them, as a certain amount of physical culture was obligatory at Boxwood Hall; and that evening, when they went to the gymnasium, Bob, Ned and Jerry were assigned to a certain division, and after watching the football squad at work, they went in for their turns.
The strenuous adventures our heroes had gone through with in the past had given them good muscles and bodies particularly well adapted for athletic work. They were not finished performers in gymnasium work, though, as they very soon discovered, though they did not lack the nerve, which is needed in many of the exhibitions on the parallel bars, the rings, the rope, or the trapeze.
The instructor was showing the boys how to slide down a rope head first without the use of the hands, by passing the cable between the thighs and over the shoulder, under the chin.
“Now you try it,” said the instructor to Frank Watson, who was in the class with our friends.
“I’d rather not,” said the headstrong youth. “I strained my leg a little in the pole vault yesterday, and I don’t want to lame myself.”
“I’ll do it!” eagerly exclaimed Jerry, who was next to Frank in line, though the latter had not even taken the trouble to bow, much less to speak.
“Very well, Hopkins. Try what you can do.”
Jerry seemed to have caught the knack of it at once. He came down the rope in fine style, and was complimented by the director.
“That’s what I like to see!” the coach exclaimed. “See if any of you can equal that,” and he glanced in the direction of Frank.
“Trying to show off; aren’t you?” sneered Frank, as Jerry took his place in line again. “I thought you fellows would be up to something like that when I heard about you. We haven’t much use for such as you motor boys at Boxwood Hall,” and his voice trailed off into a sneer.
Jerry shot a glance at the lad who seemed deliberately trying to antagonize him. A hot reply was on the lips of the tall lad, but he held it back.
“No, I’ll give him another chance,” thought Jerry. “There’s no use in stirring up a row just because he wants to be nasty.”