“She’s only one factor in the game. I fancy that was what Sid meant when he said he wanted to get back on the team more than we realized—he meant that it was so Miss Harrison would be friends with him again, for the same thing that caused the disagreement between them, got Sid into trouble with the proctor. And, if what Ruth says is true, Miss Harrison cares a lot for Sid.”
“Oh, you can’t tell much about girls,” retorted Tom, with an air of a youth who was past-master in the art of knowing the feminine mind. “Of course that’s not saying that Ruth doesn’t mean what she says,” he added hastily, for Phil was her brother. “But look at how Miss Harrison went with Langridge.”
“Only a couple of times, and I fancy she didn’t know his true character. She gave him his quietus soon enough after the trick he tried to play with the mirror.”
“That’s so. Well, I wish this tangle would be straightened out somehow. It’s getting on my nerves.”
“A baseball ’varsity captain shouldn’t have nerves.”
“I know it, but I can’t help it. Hello, some one’s coming. Maybe it’s Sid.”
“No, it’s Dutch Housenlager, by his tread,” and Phil’s guess was right.
“Glad I found somebody in,” remarked Dutch, as he was about to throw himself with considerable force on the old sofa. Tom grabbed the catcher, and shunted him off to one side so violently that Dutch sat down on the floor, with a jar that shook the room.
“Here, what’s that for?” he demanded, somewhat dazed.
“It was to save our sofa,” Tom explained. “You were coming down on it as if you were making a flying tackle. It would have been broken like a half-sawed-through goal post if you had landed. I side-tracked you, that’s all.”