“I’ll do anything, starve or eat slops or lie here like a log till Wednesday,” declared Roger, as he fell back again in obedience to orders, “but you’ve got to make me well enough to row. You’ll do it, won’t you?”
“We’ll see. Stay quietly in bed to-day, take only the nourishment which I have ordered, and don’t get up to-morrow until I come. You must get your strength back before you can think of rowing.”
For the rest of the day Roger lay in uneasy happiness, taking with Fletcher-like deliberateness the sloppy messes that were brought to him, receiving visitors as they drifted in after church, and kicking his legs like a lusty infant. The burden of his despair had suddenly lifted as a cloud cap lifts from a mountain peak and discloses miles of glorious, sunny landscape that had seemed but a little before as hopelessly buried in gloom as the peak itself. At times he could hardly restrain himself from leaping forth from bed and dancing out his joy. In the afternoon, when the fellows went off for walks, he took a nap; he awoke refreshed and impatient to be moving. He obeyed his orders, however, helped out by a book and the presence of various friendly souls who had time on their hands and could talk indefinitely of nothing. At night he slept again for long, unbroken hours.
In the morning the doctor came, looked him over, ordered a beefsteak for his breakfast, and told him to go back to school. Roger ate the beefsteak with the satisfaction of a hungry tramp who has chanced upon a square meal after an experience of two days with dogs and crusts; but before he left for school he slipped into the gymnasium and tried a dozen strokes on the rowing machine.
It was all right; he was a little weak, but he could pull his old stroke. He had two days in which to recover his strength.
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PRESIDENT JOHN, glorious in apparel and self-importance, strutted along the boat-house float, blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of waiting oarsmen, playing the patronizing oracle to the newspaper men, and juggling rowing terms for the benefit of everybody within earshot. What strings the genius of the Triangular League had pulled with the Athletic Association to obtain his appointment as race official we may not inquire; of the fact there was no question. A certain Mr. Henderson shared with him the responsibility of being judge at the finish, but the glory of office President John took to himself. In his eyes Henderson was but the zero which added to one makes ten. He himself was both the one and the ten.