“What’s all up?” asked Lee, advancing in alarm to the bed.
“Why, the prize stage! The doctor says I can’t use my arm for a month, and here’s the trial speaking coming on next Friday!”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” replied Lee, sinking into a chair. “It is a bad business, that’s so.” After a minute he added, “But your voice will be all right, Fred; you can have that as clear as a bell.”
“My voice! What good is that to me? Can I make gestures with my voice? How can a man do anything with his arm in a sling and his shoulders bound up as if he were a mummy?”
Parmenter was excited. He felt that hitherto his success on the platform had been largely due to the training he had had in what is called “presence” and his skill in gestures. That effect would now be totally destroyed.
“You might learn to use your left arm,” suggested Lee, as a forlorn hope.
“Bah! You know better than that, Charley. I’m out, that’s all. There’s only one redeeming feature about the whole business; and that is, that you’ll carry off first prize now for all the trouble I shall give you.”
For a minute Lee was at a loss for an answer. He also was a candidate for the prize stage. They had agreed that each was to strive to obtain the honor to the best of his ability; but the rivalry was so friendly that neither would have accepted an appointment at the expense of the other. At the same time, it would have been a great pleasure to either to have the other carry off the prize.
After a while Lee said, casting his eyes down on his friend’s bandaged shoulder and plastered head:
“That was a cowardly thing for Van Loan to do, wasn’t it? Dangerous, too. Why, just think of it! It might have cracked your skull!”