“Guess he knew every one would be looking the other way. Tubb’s up and Andy’s taking him off. Hope he didn’t get a broken rib. That was a fierce wallop he got!”
“I’d hand Roy Frick a fierce wallop if it was me,” growled Lovett. “I’d hand him about two dozen of ’em!”
Tubb was helped into his sweater and sent back to the gymnasium and the game went on. Since Frick played the half out at quarter, Toby judged that none had witnessed the incident save he and Lovett. Toby forgot it later, for in the last fifteen-minute half he went in on the Second and had his hands and his mind too full of other things. But that some one still remembered was evident when Toby got back to his room after practice. George Tubb had left a note.
Dear Tucker: If you have time will you come up to my room a minute after supper? I want to see you about something. G. W. T.
Toby guessed what the something was and wondered whether he was to be asked to bear a challenge to Roy Frick! He rather wished that Tubb had selected some one else to consult, but he went nevertheless, climbing the second flight in Whitson as soon after supper as he judged Tubb had returned to Number 31. He found both Tubb and Ramsey at home, but Horace went out after a few minutes, possibly by request. Tubb, reflected Toby, was quite a different looking boy from the one whose cut lip he had plastered on the train that afternoon some five weeks ago. For one thing, he looked a deal cleaner! And he was rather more carefully dressed. But the real change was deeper, Toby thought. Tubb’s attitude toward his fellows and his school life had undergone a change already, and the end was not yet; and the fact was manifested in his expression and his speech. Tubb had gained in self-respect, Toby concluded. Physically, too, he had altered, and for the better, for football work had straightened his shoulders, made his flesh look harder and his eyes clearer and removed the unhealthy pallor from his face. On the whole, Toby got quite a lot of satisfaction from his study of George W. Tubb this evening.
But it was a very serious Tubb who confronted Toby when the door had closed behind Horace Ramsey. There was very evidently something on the Tubb mind. Toby waited in silence and after a moment Tubb began. “That fellow with you this afternoon—Lovett, wasn’t it?—said it was Frick who kicked me in the side. Did you see him do it, Tucker?”
“Why—well, yes, I did, Tubb. Of course it was probably an accident——”
“How could it have been?” Tubb’s old scowl returned for an instant. “He had the whole field, didn’t he? He needn’t have run over me! No, I guess what happened was that he got mad because I stopped him from running the punt back that time. I guess he’s got a bad temper, Frick. Well, anyway, what I wanted to ask you is this. What’s the right way to go after him? They say faculty won’t stand for fighting, but of course a fellow’s got to pull a scrap sometimes. I’m going to get Frick for this, but I don’t want to get fired, you see. He isn’t worth it.”
“Of course he isn’t,” agreed Toby heartily. “And I’m afraid you would get—well, maybe not fired, Tubb, but put on probation at least if faculty found out.”
“And probation would lose me my place on the team, wouldn’t it? That’s what I supposed. Well, then, how would you go about it, Tucker? So as not to be nabbed, I mean.”