"Never mind, Timmy, you've still got me!" replied Amy sweetly. "Gee, to hear you rave you'd think the whole team had graduated!" "So it has, practically!" "Ah, yes, and I heard the same dope this time last year. We'd lost Miller and Sawyer and Williams and--and Milton and a dozen or two more and there wasn't any hope for us! And all we did was to go ahead and dodder along and beat Claflin seven to nothing! Not so bad for a lifeless corpse, what?" Steve Edwards laughed. "Well, maybe we do talk trouble a good deal about this time of year. It's natural, I guess. You lose fellows who played fine ball last year and you can't see just at first how anyone can fill their places. Someone always does, though. That's the bully part of it. I dare say we'll manage to dodder along, as Amy calls it, and rub it into old Claflin as we've been doing." "First sensible word I've heard tonight," said Amy approvingly. "I wouldn't kick so much if I only had to hear this sort of stuff occasionally, but I'm rooming with the original crepe-hanger! Clint sobs himself to sleep at night thinking how terribly the dear old team's shot to pieces. If I remark in my optimistic, gladsome way, 'Clint, list how sweetly the birdies sing, and observe, I prithee, the sunlight gilding yon mountain peak,' Clint turns his mournful countenance on me and chokes out something about a weak backfield! Say, I'm gladder every day of my life that I stayed sane and----" "Stayed _what_?" exclaimed Jim Morton incredulously. "And didn't become obsessed with football mania!" "Where do you get the words, Amy?" sighed Clint Thayer admiringly. "Amy's the original phonograph," commented Tim. "Only he's an improvement on anything Edison ever invented. You don't have to wind Amy up!" "No, he's got a self-starting attachment," chuckled Draper. "Returning to the--the original contention," continued Amy in superb disdain of the low jests, "I'll bet any one of you or the whole kit and caboodle of you that we beat Claflin again this year. Now make a noise like some money!" "Amy, we don't bet," remarked Tom Hall. "At least, not with money. Betting money is very wrong. (Amy sniffed sarcastically.) But I'll wager a good feed for the crowd that we have a harder time beating Claflin this year than we had last. And I'll----" "Oh, piffle! I don't care whether you have to work harder to do it or not. I say you'll do it! Hard work wouldn't hurt you, anyway. You're a lot of loafers. All any of you do is go out to the field and strike an attitude like a hero. Why----" Cries of expostulation and threats of physical violence failed to disturb the irrepressible Amy. "Tell you what I'll do, you piffling Greeks, I'll blow you all off to a top-hole dinner at the Inn if Claflin beats us. There's a sporting proposition for you, you undertakers' assistants!" "Yah! What do we do if she doesn't?" exclaimed Walton.