“I don’t think they are intimate,” replied Dick, “but they know each other fairly well.”
“Why can’t Phil draw the little chap out?” said Varrell. “It’s for the boy’s own good.”
Phil yielded with bad grace to the older boys’ request. To a character transparently frank and wholly detesting underhand methods, the task savored of dishonesty. Only when he was assured that Eddy was in the power of a dangerous person whose grip on the boy it was important to break at the earliest possible moment, did he consent to make the attempt.
The next morning he offered to join Eddy in his room for the working out of the algebra problems. Eddy accepted the offer with alacrity, both because he welcomed assistance and because he was pleased to have a boy like Poole in his room. When the lesson was at an end, Phil asked him flatly what he found attractive in Bosworth. Eddy became red and white by turns, and said he didn’t know. Then Phil pressed his question, and Eddy “didn’t know” and “couldn’t tell” until a great storm of tears and sobs melted the heart of the unwilling inquisitor, and brought the examination to an abrupt close. Phil had just resolution enough left before he fled the painful scene, to urge the unfortunate boy to let Bosworth wholly alone, and if he had anything bad on his conscience to confide it to Grim or some one else who could help him.
“That settles it for the present,” said Varrell, when he heard the report. “The scoundrel has the little fool tied hand and foot. We must play the waiting game a while longer.”
“If Grim knew what we know, he would worm the facts out of Eddy in ten minutes,” said Phil.
“I’m not so sure of it,” replied Varrell. “That’s the last card, anyway; I’m not willing to play that yet.”
The season was drawing toward its interesting end. On the following Saturday was to be held the school track meet, a week later the contest with Hillbury, and after another week the great baseball game with the same rivals. Before and after the athletic contests, and sprinkled in among them, came the Morgan Prize Speaking, the Morgan Composition Reading, the contests for the English and Mathematical prizes, class dinners, society elections, preparation for class-day,—opportunities and pleasures of every variety to goad the conscientious and inspire the indifferent. Varrell restricted his ambition to his studies and pole vaulting, and so had strength in reserve for the still hunt after “Beelzebub,”—a name which after three months of Milton gradually and naturally replaced “Bosworth” in the private conversations of the two friends.
Melvin’s occupations were more varied. Besides his regular school work, which he was anxious to do well to the very end, there were the troublesome duties of track manager to be performed, the regular jumping practice to be kept up, and a class-day part to prepare. The “still hunt” he left to Varrell, who undertook to do the watching while Dick attended to the waiting.
The cares of management proved considerably greater than Melvin had anticipated. In addition to the worry of collecting subscriptions, and the necessity of bothering with the large number of men and numerous details involved in a dozen events, he found himself bearing burdens that really belonged to another. Dickinson, the captain, possessed a very peculiar character. He could run like a deer. In the two-twenty and the quarter ordinary handicaps seemed of no use against him. This year he had been experimenting with the hundred yards as well, and in two trials out of three, he could give Tommy Travers, who had been for two years the best hundred-yard man in school, three or four yards and beat him with ease. Yet with this marvelous natural ability, which had lifted him suddenly the year before from a position of unimportance to one of great popularity, he had only a slight interest in his sport. He ran because the school wanted him to run, not because he either loved the sport or hankered after the glory of winning. Left to himself, he would sooner or later have abandoned the track altogether and settled back into solitary moping with his books. As it was, he often appeared moody and apathetic, and neglected many of the duties which a captain likes especially to perform. Inspiration and push had to come from the manager.