Hollister glanced inquiringly at him.
“What’s the matter, Jim?” he asked. “What you got against Jarv?”
“What’s he come in here every night for, I’d like to know?” Townsend demanded. “He gets you going on football, and the result is you haven’t opened a book since you had that talk with the dean, and your flunks in the classrooms are something fierce.”
Hollister’s face took on an expression of whimsical annoyance.
“Thunder, Jim!” he exclaimed petulantly. “What do you want to start preaching for? You know I’m going to settle down into a fierce grind the minute the last game is over. I just can’t find time to do it now with so much else to think about.”
“Rot!” growled Townsend. “You talk nutty! You’d have time enough if that tow-headed son of a gun didn’t come butting in every night and break you all up.”
Hollister made no reply, but his heavy brows drew down into a scowl. Townsend, too full of his grievance to notice this, presently continued his argument.
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you, Bob,” he said significantly, “how very nice it would be for Blake if you were conditioned and had to leave the team? He’s one of the best subs for your position, and there’s hardly a question but what he would step into your shoes at once. I’ll bet that’s the reason which brings him here so often, with his football talk and his sneers about there being no danger of the dean doing anything radical. He’s keeping you from boning on purpose. He’d be tickled to death to see you dropped so he could——”
“Stop!” interrupted Hollister, in an angry voice. “Just cut out that line of talk, Jim. You forget that Blake is my friend. You never liked him, I know, but that’s no reason why you should blackguard him this way.”
His face was dark, and there was an angry flash in his usually merry brown eyes; for he was a fellow who was loyal to the very core. Absolutely upright and honorable himself, it never occurred to him that there was the most remote possibility that a fellow he liked as much as he did Jarvis Blake was not entirely fair and square in every way. The idea to which his roommate had given voice was incredible. He refused to tolerate the thought for a single instant, and at once proceeded to thrust it from his mind with the greatest expedition.