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2
THE EIGHT-OARED VICTORS

to get up. Lend me a hand somebody!" he appealed.

"'Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!'" recited Tom in the best schoolboy style. "Can't you manage to assist yourself, Sid; or are you getting too fat?"

"Fat! Huh! I guess if you'd trained the way I did for those track games you wouldn't be fat!" was shot out in protest.

"Train! Listen to him, Phil. Just because he won his big jump he thinks that's all there is. Why——"

"Hold on," put in Phil, quietly. "You fellows will get on each other's nerves if you continue. And you're certainly getting on mine. How do you expect me to bone away if you're going on like this? That fussy alarm clock is bad enough—I don't know why we tolerate the old thing anyhow—but when you two get to scrapping, and this confounded rain never lets up, why it's the extreme edge, so to speak."

"It is the rain, I guess," spoke Tom Parsons, in a low voice. "It's enough to get on anyone's nerves. A straight week now," and he drummed on the wet window-pane, while Phil turned over on an old sofa, that creaked dismally, and tried to get a better light on his book. But the gloom outside seemed to have found a place in the study room.