“Respectfully,
“Arnold Deering.”
Toby sighed.
“And he spelled ‘apology’ with two P’s,” he muttered, as though that was the last straw. “And he’s still angry. Gee, I can’t go and tell him that I know Frank didn’t swipe that money, because I know he did. I suppose I might tell a lie about it, though. I wish—I wish Frank would choke!” He slipped the note back into the envelope, thrust it impatiently into the drawer and closed the drawer with a vindictive bang. “All right, then, he can stay mad. I’m not going to say what isn’t so for him or any one else. ‘Just being sorry doesn’t make up for it!’ I’d like to know what else you can be but sorry. If he thinks it’s so easy to—to be sorry—I mean say you’re sorry and apologize, then why doesn’t he do a little of it? He makes me tired! I don’t care a fig whether—”
Toby paused right there in his muttering, swallowed hard and looked sheepish.
“Gee,” he thought, “I nearly did it again! I’m glad Doctor Collins didn’t hear me! I guess the hard thing about controlling your temper is to know when you’re not!” With which cryptic reflection Toby made his way sadly downstairs just as the two o’clock bell began to ring.
CHAPTER XIX
A PAIR OF GLOVES
The hockey game with Nordham that Saturday afternoon left a good deal to be desired in science and interest. In the first place, and I mention it as a mitigating circumstance, two days of mild weather had left the ice in very poor condition and good skating was out of the question. A half-inch of water lay over the surface and against the boards on the sunny side of the rink the ice was fairly rotten. Nordham presented a hard-working aggregation of talent, a team of lithe, well-trained youths who looked not only in the pink of condition but able for speed and skill as well. Toby viewed that contest from the bench, for, lacking Coach Loring’s prompting, Captain Crowell failed to so much as cock an eye at the substitute goal-tend. However, there was no necessity at any stage of the game for a relief for Frank Lamson. Frank had so little to do that he was palpably bored, since as poorly as Yardley played that day Nordham somehow managed to play far worse. Her forwards performed fairly well, considering an entire absence of team-play, but her defense was pitifully weak and Yardley, once past the center of the rink, had only to keep on her feet in order to score. Twelve tallies in the first period against two for Nordham, and seven more in the last to the visitor’s three was the outcome of the contest. The spectators hung over the barrier listlessly and almost went to sleep until, toward the end, when Crowell put in three substitute forwards and a substitute cover point, the contest became so much like a parody on hockey that they found amusement in making fun of the players.