Since that cheerful day when they had whipped the Blackport nine on the ball field, Pence and his friends believed they could beat Yansey and his comrades at any game. Yansey's own pet expression, "Nothing to it!" was forever on the lips of Ben, Pudge and Kirby when they spoke of the coming rowing contest.
"But you and I have been told, Jawn," Rex drawled, talking the situation over with the big fellow one day, "that rowing races aren't always won in the boat."
"Hey?" exclaimed Midkiff. "Who told us that bunk?"
"They're often won at the training table and in the gym.," chuckled Rex, who dearly loved to get a rise out of his Old Hall room-mate.
"Those chaps aren't training, you know. Neither are we as we should, for that matter. But they all dally with the cunning little coffin-nail, even Pudge. They eat everything and anything--and any-_how_. They lie around after eating like a boa constrictor assimilating a heifer; and then they take exercise too violently. Some of them puff, like the _Spoondrift's_ exhaust, two minutes after they get to work."
"What did you expect when you handed the crew over to Horrors?" sniffed Midkiff.
"What I expected has nothing to do with what I want," Kingdon responded with some appearance of gloom. "Don't want it told all along this coast that a bunch of us Walcott Hall fellows joined a rowing crew that won't even have a look-in when we go up against these local chaps."
"What would you suggest, Jawn? Come, Old Wise Head, give us a boost."
"No," Kingdon said with seriousness. "Verily I itch for the chance to whip the crew up. I believe it can be bettered by shifting some of them about, too. But I fear, Jawn--I fear!"
"I've gained something with Horrors. Notice the figure he cuts on the mound now?"
"And is that the price he's paying for his job as captain of the crew?" demanded Midkiff scornfully.
"Whether he's voluntarily and knowingly paying such price," Kingdon rejoined evenly, "doesn't really matter, does it, Jawn? I've got him about where I want him in baseball. Got him interested. I'd hold him if I can, and the rest of you fellows must help me."
"You know well enough," was the cool response. "We need him."
"You'll never get him! He's one of these swell-heads who think they know all there is to know, anyhow--and what's the use of proving themselves either right or wrong by going to school any more?" Midkiff spoke bitterly. He could not like a fellow of Horace Pence's caliber--or thought he could not.