Frank Merriwell's Setback
True Pluck Welcomes Defeat
9781465648204
330 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In its various forms it was an old trick, and it ought not to have worked on Starbright, who had come from the famous preparatory college at Andover. But by some chance, Dick had never heard of it, and the sophomores, discovering this, prepared to “work” him with it. It was a principle with the lordly sophomores to annoy freshmen, and the towering young giant, who had already made himself so famous at Yale, suffered as much at their hands as less noted mortals. There is a streak in human nature which causes those who have been “through the mill” to want to put others through. This spirit accounts for “hazing,” in all its forms. Jack Ready started it by offering to bet Dick Starbright ten dollars that he could not ride a bicycle from New Haven to Guilford and back, a round-trip of thirty-two miles, in three hours. Starbright snapped him up quicker than a wink, for though there were many things he could do better than bicycling, Dick knew that he could do this, and the trip to Guilford, along the pleasant shores for a great part of the way, was an attractive one. The bet was made one Wednesday evening, and Dick was to do the riding the next Saturday afternoon. Starbright told his friend Dashleigh about it. “Of course you can do it!” Bert declared. “Dead easy! Why, I could do that trip in two hours, even if the roads are sandy. But three! I don’t know what Ready is thinking about. He must fancy that I can’t ride a wheel. Perhaps it is because I started in to take part in the relay race and Merriwell pulled me out of it and put me at other work. But that was only because you are a faster rider than I am, and my size and strength made me a promising candidate for the shot-putting and hammer-throwing.”
