“I don’t think so,” Mr. Collins laughed. “And, anyhow, Tooker, I don’t believe it could ever catch you!”
And so during the evening Ned had been studying Kendall most of the time, even when it seemed that he hadn’t a thought beyond creating a laugh. And what he had seen he had liked. He hadn’t been surprised, for he had found that Mr. Collins’s judgment in such matters usually coincided with his. Ned’s verdict by the time the group broke up was something like this: “Rather homely in a nice way. Good eyes and looks straight at you. Well-behaved. Rather shy. Doesn’t butt in. Sees a joke before it knocks him down. Has a good voice. Dresses like a farmer and needs a hair-cut and a manicure, but looks as though he knew the use of bath-tubs. On the whole an interesting subject. Get busy.”
And he had got busy, with what results we know. If there was some measure of duplicity in Ned’s first evidences of interest and friendship, the duplicity was in a good cause. Before he had taken himself away, however, Ned had ceased to play a part, and his disconcerting “Do you know, Burtis, I like you!” had been very genuine. But on the way back to his room Ned had owned to himself that it might not prove an easy task to convert the outward appearance of his new protégé to Yardley standards.
“He must have some other clothes,” murmured Ned as he crossed the Yard to Dudley. “And first of all he must have his hair cut. The hair-cut won’t be difficult, but it’s a mighty delicate matter to tell a chap that his clothes aren’t right. Well, I’ll go at it gently. Tact, Ned, tact and diplomacy!”
“I wonder,” he reflected after he was in bed and listening to the musical efforts of his slumbering roommate, “I wonder what the dickens that kid did to get probation! He doesn’t strike you as much of a cut-up. I can’t just see him putting a tack in Bertie’s chair!” (Bertie was Mr. Albert Von Groll, Instructor in Modern Languages.) “Besides, he said the secret concerned others. I suppose that’s what Collins meant when he said the chap hadn’t been altogether fortunate since he came. I should say not! It’s going some to get on probation within three weeks of the opening of school! Well, I’ll look him up again to-morrow. I simply must know why he’s on pro!”
Yardley played her third football game the next afternoon. Her opponent was Forest Hill School. Forest Hill was not considered very dangerous and there was a rumor that Payson meant to put in a team of substitutes in the last two periods. Ned Tooker reached the field only a few minutes before the time of starting the game and the two teams were already running through signals and punting. As he turned the corner and walked along in front of the crowded stand many hails reached him:
“Ned, come on up; here’s a seat!”
“Oh you Took! Come and sit in my lap, Ned!”
But Ned only waved and smiled and went on, searching the stand with his gaze. It was not until the whistle had sounded and Sandy Fogg had lifted the ball from the tee with the toe of his shoe that Ned found whom he was looking for. Then he climbed the stairs, nodding and eluding the detaining hands thrust toward him, and crowded his way along one of the seats until he reached Kendall. The latter, absorbed in the game—the Forest Hill left half-back was charging back up the field with the pigskin nestled in his arm—hadn’t seen Ned’s approach, and when the latter crowded down beside him and Kendall turned to see who it was the smile that came into his face was well worth seeing.
“Hello!” he said rather shyly.