CHAPTER XXIV
FRICK IS CALLED AWAY
That momentous Saturday dawned crisp and bright. Yardley Hall School was early afoot and there was, from the first awakening, a flood of contagious excitement, repressed during chapel but let loose immediately afterwards. Breakfast, for the average boy was hilarious, for the two dozen or so fellows who would or might meet Broadwood in the afternoon it was a trying ordeal at which the usual viands had lost their flavor and where swallowing was often a painful task. Fortunately for both faculty and students, experience had taught the futility of holding the usual Saturday recitations on the morning of the Broadwood contest, and all but a very few were abandoned.
Toby awoke in excellent spirits that day. After all, a fellow can’t have everything he wants, and here was a corking morning, the big game at hand and Yardley trained to the moment; and Toby concluded that he had no grouch coming to him! Besides, if playing on the School Team meant being in such a state of mind as Arnold was in, why, one was much better off it! For Arnold had a horrible case of stage-fright. He fidgeted and gloomed and was alternately a pest and a subject for the deepest sympathy. Toby had but one recitation, at eleven, and so, after breakfast, he set himself the task of keeping Arnold from jumping into the river or biting holes in the pavement. A walk seemed the best medicine, and the two strolled down to the tennis courts and watched there awhile and then across the field—Toby tossing his cap over the cross-bar of the south goal for good-luck—and went upstream along the river bank. Of course Arnold talked nothing but football, and Toby let him chatter to his heart’s content. Talking appeared to make Arnold less glum. Finally they struck inland by the golf links and dodged balls for a half-mile on the way back, reaching Whitson again at about ten, unaware that a visitor had called and, finding Toby absent, had gone his way again without leaving his card.
Arnold wandered off after a few minutes and Toby tried to prime himself a little for the coming recitation. Then, just before eleven, he clattered downstairs and over to Oxford, pausing once or twice to hold jerky conversation with excited friends. Followed a harrowing half-hour, harrowing for Mr. McIntyre, otherwise known as “Kilts,” the mathematics instructor, and for a roomful of restless and, for the nonce, surprisingly stupid boys. There was an audible sigh of relief at dismissal, a sigh that swelled to a shout as the fellows gained the doorway and piled out onto the sunlit steps of the old granite building. Toby lingered to talk to Steve Lippman a minute, and there Billy Tarrant, the assistant manager of the School Team, found him after a long search. Tarrant pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed Toby’s arm.
“You’re wanted in commons, Tucker,” he announced. “Get a move on!”
Toby hung back. “What for?” he asked. “Who wants me?”
“Mr. Lyle. I don’t know what for. Something about the team. Come on! I’ve been hunting you for half an hour.”
“Oh! Well, all right.” Toby followed obediently, wondering nevertheless. Half-way, a simple explanation presented itself. Perhaps the Yardley fellow who was to have handled the chain in the game couldn’t serve, and they were going to let him do it. Toby concluded that this was his lucky day after all. The dining-room doors were closed, but Tarrant thrust open the nearer one and pushed Toby inside. The First Team crowd were seated around the training table. Mr. Lyle was talking and Tarrant and Toby trod on their tiptoes down the length of the room. Andy Ryan arose and noiselessly set chairs for the new arrivals, and Toby seated himself gingerly, aware that many of the gathering had glanced at him curiously and that Arnold’s countenance was one big exclamation point! Then, between the heads of those near him, he caught a glimpse of George Tubb’s face, and George was looking at him and making silent words with his lips that Toby couldn’t read. He shook his head helplessly and tried to listen to the coach. Mr. Lyle was going over his instructions for the battle in a very quiet tone. Now and then he asked a question and some one answered, once or twice wrongly. But Toby, consumed by curiosity, heard little of the discourse. Even when the manager wheeled a blackboard over and the coach made circles and straight lines and wavy lines with a piece of chalk, and every one else watched with almost painful attention and in perfectly soggy silence, Toby just kept right on wondering why he was there. For an outsider to be present during these mystic rites was absolutely unheard of! For a wild, breathless moment the idea came to him that Doctor Collins had relented and that he had been reinstated on the team. But that was too improbable, too absurd for credence! Besides, there was Roy Frick over there, looking supercilious and self-important.