“Don’t blame me, then, if things don’t go right,” returned Mulcahy, seating himself at his desk as if the interview were over. “You’ll just get into the scrape deeper. I’ve given you the best advice I know. My conscience is clear.”
Sam flung out of Mulcahy’s room without a backward glance or a word. Furious with Mulcahy and with the whole ridiculous business, he strode along vowing he would fight without a second, anywhere, at any time. At the corner of Sibley he ran into Kendrick.
“Look out there!” sang out Kendrick’s cheerful voice. “What’re you rushing me for? I’m not Runyon.”
Sam’s face brightened. “Say, Ken, will you be my second if I have to fight that fellow?”
“Sure, I will,” responded the ready Kendrick. “But why do you say ‘if’? You’ve got to fight him.”
“Don’t you think you might go to him and show him what a fool he’s making—”
“It wouldn’t do a bit of good,” interrupted Kendrick. “Nothing’ll cure his disease but some good hard punches in the head. I’d just as lief go and tell him what a fool he is as not. Maybe I’d get a chance to hand him a few myself. Only it wouldn’t do any good.”
“You won’t get into any trouble with the profs by backing me, will you?” questioned Sam, mindful of Mulcahy’s fears.
“Trouble? Supposing I do? The job’s got to be done, hasn’t it?”
“Then go and tell him to come to my room after the four o’clock bell rings. Alsop is at recitation then. He can bring some one with him.”