Gladwin replied and conversation became general again. But now and then Arnold cast a puzzled glance across at Toby’s lowered head and wondered what had happened to the usually even-tempered chum. By that time Toby was angry with himself for having shown his feelings. He wouldn’t have had the other fellows at the table guess the reason for his glumness for anything in the world. Nor did he want Arnold to guess it. He had meant to treat the latter with chill indifference; he hadn’t intended to act like a sulky kid. When he left the table Arnold followed him to join him on the way out as was usual, but to-night Toby skirted another table, reached the corridor in advance of Arnold and, without a glance, pushed through the swinging door to the stairway and mounted swiftly to his room. Once there he paused on the threshold and listened. If he had thought to hear Arnold’s footsteps in pursuit he was mistaken, for Arnold, viewing his friend’s singular behavior, had merely shrugged his shoulders a bit irritably and let him go.
In his room again, Toby turned up the light, which had been reduced to a mere pin-point of flame, dragged the chair to the table again and, settling his head in his hands, determinedly attacked his Latin. But for a long while, although he kept his eyes on the page, his ears were strained for the sound of Arnold’s footsteps. Other footsteps echoed down the corridor and several doors opened and shut. Roy Stillwell, across the corridor, was singing a football song, keeping time with his heels on the floor:
“Old Yardley can’t be beat, my boy,
She’s bound to win the game!
So give a cheer for Yardley, and
Hats off to Yardley’s fame!”
Toby, listening whether he wanted to or not, wished Stillwell would be quiet. How could a fellow study with such an uproar going on? Presently Stillwell was quiet, and then Toby sort of wished he would sing again. The silence was horribly lonesome. He raised his eyes from the book at last and viewed disconsolately the shabby little room. He wished himself back at home and, for the time at least, honestly regretted ever having come to Yardley. It had been, he assured himself, a silly thing to do. Most of the fellows weren’t his sort. Nearly all that he knew—and he knew few enough—were boys with well-to-do parents, boys who had about everything they wanted, who lived in comfortable rooms with pictures on the walls and rugs on the floors and easy-chairs to loll in and all sorts of nice things. Secretly, of course, if not openly—and he had to acknowledge grudgingly that they didn’t do it openly—they looked down on him for being poor and ill-dressed and having to press clothes to make enough money to assure his return another year. They weren’t his kind at all. It would have been far better had he kept on at the high school in Johnstown, as he would have done if Arnold hadn’t beguiled him with glowing accounts of Yardley. And there was the matter of the scholarship, too. Toby had rather hoped to secure one of the six Fourth Year scholarships, if not a Ripley, which credited one with sixty dollars against the tuition fee, then a Haynes, which carried fifty dollars with it. Arnold had been quite sure that Toby could do it and Toby had thought so himself just at first, but there had been trouble with mathematics in October and during the time that he had striven to make good as a football player he had slumped a little in Latin as well. The announcement would be made the last of the week, but Toby no longer dared hope to hear his name coupled with one of the prizes.
Suddenly he turned his gaze toward the door and listened intently. Footsteps on the stairs! They sounded like Arnold’s! Then they came along the corridor, nearer and nearer. Were they Arnold’s? One instant Toby thought they were and the next doubted it. They weren’t quite like, but if they stopped at his door—
They did stop! And a knock sounded! Toby held his breath. He wanted to run across the room and throw the door open, but something held him motionless. Another knock, louder this time, and then the door-knob was tried.