“It seems all right now,” replied Mac, with an abrupt lapse from his gayety.

Yards gave him a sharp glance, and his eyes darkened ominously. “I believe you—” he began, but the beseeching look on Mac’s face checked him. “I’m glad it’s no worse,” he finished lamely.

CHAPTER XV
DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS

Jubilation and swaggering self-satisfaction reigned triumphant at Westcott’s Monday morning. Certain small boys who had acquired a habit of arriving half an hour before the time of opening so as to have opportunity, before the advent of interfering teachers, for tag through the play room and up the stairs, found their numbers doubled. Instead of scampering wildly off like frolicsome kittens, they gathered in solid clusters at their end of the big schoolroom and exchanged opinions and reminiscences, sprinkling their conversation richly with comments like “Wasn’t it great when Mac made that goal!” “Did you see Fat Bumpus slide on his nose?” “I was dead scared that time when Trowbridge got down to our ten-yard line!” “The paper said—” “Papa thought—” and so on, in a series that developed itself by arithmetical progression. Richard Sumner, who had a gift for drawing, spent ten minutes, hedged in by a semicircle of admirers and supervised by Mike, in chalking on the board a splendid figure of a plunging half-back, armed cap-a-pie, which he reproduced by memory from a magazine cover. The breast of his player rampant he covered with a huge W, and underneath he printed in neat characters the score by games. When this was done, Mike produced a list of an All-Triangular eleven, which he had elaborated over Sunday, and defended with a great show of expert knowledge the right of seven Westcottites to a place thereon.

Then the older boys came in a bunch, driven in by the cold from the corner outside. They took places in the alcove that commanded the street, on watch for the members of the team as they arrived. Each one as he appeared was signalled at a distance, and hailed by name and applause as he entered the room. Harrison, of course, received a prolonged salvo, but Talbot, Eaton, and Hardie were welcomed almost as heartily, while Bumpus’s bruised face, and Mac’s complacent grin, called forth a special demonstration. Last of all Sumner was seen, hurrying late across the street, and an original salutation that would be sure to rattle him was suggested by Wilmot—but the bell rang and spoiled it all.

At noon, by general agreement, ten minutes were taken from recess and another ten from recitation,—a phenomenal concession on the part of Mr. Westcott,—speeches were made, and the school cheered their throats and enthusiasm out. It was a new experience for Roger Hardie to hear the leader call his name, and to feel in the wholehearted volley, to read in the enthusiastic faces bent upon him, that he was accounted worthy the gratitude of the school; and his content was not lessened by the fact that he had gained his place, against the general expectation, by his own merit. Yet proudly happy though he was in the consciousness of a certain success achieved, he felt no temptation to that silly vanity which is too often the result of public praise, and transforms a reasonably attractive boy into a bumptious, overweening cad. There was a reason for this, other than natural modesty. Roger had conceived a new ambition—to row on a school crew. Here again he stood at the foot of a ladder. To gain a place he must push ahead of a dozen others whose experience gave them a right to laugh at his pretensions.

Dunn cheered with the rest, but every “rah” which he forced himself to utter cost him as much effort as a line of Virgil dug out with a vocabulary. He had been badly frightened by the incident of the Newbury protest. The upper school had held him in a measure responsible for the false position in which they found themselves—most unjustly, Dunn maintained, since he had been but the bearer of a message. Certain persons, more frank than polite, had said unpleasant things in his hearing; his closest friends had for a time been cool toward him. When, with the decision of the committee, the cloud passed, Dunn plucked up spirit again, and for the last week of football practice really tried hard to retrieve his reputation. He succeeded so far, indeed, that Harrison held out hopes to him of getting into the Trowbridge game in the second half, if things went well. But things did not go well, at least from Dunn’s point of view, for at no time during the game had Yards considered it safe to exchange the steady, clear-headed, hard-tackling end for a substitute of doubtful quality. So Dunn was left minus the coveted W, and plus a strong conviction that he had been ill-used. It was not easy for him to forgive Hardie for robbing him of his place and gaining the opportunity to achieve a triumph which Dunn felt sure he could have achieved just as well. Equally unpalatable was the fact that Hardie seemed to be established on good terms with the influential set, of which Talbot, Sumner, Wilmot, and Trask formed the solid centre. On the other hand, while there were many whom Dunn called his friends, no one showed any great liking for his society except Ben Tracy and Stover, neither of whom was able to help him along toward that popularity for which his heart yearned. His poor recitation work also seemed to count against him in this strange school in which the boys actually held it the proper thing to work on lessons, and while they pretended to make light of low marks, at bottom despised a numskull. Can we wonder, then, that the disdain with which Dunn first regarded his quiet housemate, Hardie, should have turned to envy?

That afternoon Roger went down town with McDowell to buy their football hatbands—a white background striped three times with blue, the outer stripes wide, the inner one narrow. McDowell took his hat off as they emerged from the shop, and gave the new decoration a long look of admiration, regardless of the jostling crowd. “It’s not so pretty as the crew band that Pete wears,” he said slowly, “but I’d a lot rather have it. It means something.”

“So does the crew mean something,” answered Roger. “It means more than any band there is. Only a few fellows can get it, and at least a dozen can sport football bands.—Put on your dip, you lunatic. They’ll think you’re crazy!”