Jack accepted Merry’s hand, and then Frank called the others up.
“Shake hands with a fellow who was clever enough to fool us all at our own game,” he said.
“Say,” said Ned Noon, “if you’ll keep still about it, Ready, we’ll blow you off to a great spread.”
“I’m not to be bribed,” he said. “You brought it upon yourselves, and you’ll have to stand the laugh.”
“Well, you destroyed a splendid skeleton that cost us eighty dollars,” said Roger Stone. “You ought to pay for that.”
“Charge it to accidental loss,” advised Jack. “You’ll never get a penny out of me for it.”
And they did not blame him. They would have thought him a chump had he paid anything.
He did spread the story, and set the whole college laughing at Merriwell and his friends. Frank took it gracefully, not once denying the story. He showed that he could stand it when the joke was on him, which is something most practical jokers are quite unable to do. Jack Ready became famous through this adventure and the work he did in the Brown football-game. While he did not assume any mock modesty, he had a humorous way of accepting his glory, and he became popular outside of his own class, although nothing but a freshman.
“Here, here, what in blazes do you think you are doing――catching balloons? Use your hands, you chump! What are your hands made for, anyway?”
“You fall on the ball like a lobster! Don’t sprawl all over yourself! Drop flat and quick! You won’t break!”
“Well, do you call that a drop-kick? Where did you ever get the idea that you could kick?”
“Oh, wake up! You’re sleeping! You are the deadest man I ever saw breathing! Come to life!”
“You won’t do at all! It’s wasting time to fool with you!”
A dozen different coachers were at work on the Yale football eleven and the substitutes, and they were working the men like slaves. Each coacher seemed to have a particular man to whom he was giving his attention, and he was expressing himself in vigorous language. It was an absolute relief to hear a word of praise now and then.
“Well done, Hodge! You’ve got the idea now.”
“Do it like that――do it like that, Spofford!”
It was a scene of the greatest activity. All over the field men were punting, running, dropping on the ball, tacking, and doing other things required of football-players in practise. They seemed possessed by a frenzied determination, and it mattered not how severely they were criticized, they kept at it till told to stop. No man seemed to get discouraged.