“All right.” Willard shrugged his shoulders. “If I were you, though, I’d go at him sort of easy.”
“Oh, I’ll be easy enough,” said Joe untroubledly. “He’s in Upton, isn’t he? What’s the number? Forty-nine?” Joe looked at his watch and got to his feet. “I’ve got twenty minutes before French. I’ll run over and see him. Of course nothing will come of it, though. A fellow who’s been out of training as long as he has can’t come back in three or four weeks. Besides, I dare say he’s forgotten all the football he ever knew.”
Willard parted with Joe at the entrance. “Good luck,” he called as Joe went off. “Try diplomacy first, Joe!”
Joe smiled back confidently and waved a careless hand.
It was not until he reached the gymnasium in the afternoon that Willard learned the result of Joe’s visit to Number 49 Upton. Joe was still angry. “The fellow’s a perfect fool,” he snapped in reply to Willard’s polite inquiry. “And he’s as stubborn as a mule! Sat there and talked for ten minutes about how the full-back position ought to be played and then calmly told me he wouldn’t try for the team for a thousand dollars!”
“And then you bullied him,” laughed Willard.
“I told him what I thought of him,” answered Joe grimly. “He made me so blamed mad I could have punched his head. Just sat there and blinked and shook his silly bean! And when I’d flayed him alive he wanted to know if I wouldn’t like to see his mineral collection. Oh, the chap’s plain nutty!”
“He is sort of peculiar,” agreed Willard soberly.
“Peculiar!” Joe laughed mirthlessly. “He’s crazy in the head. Know what I think? Well, he showed me a lot of mushrooms he had there; nasty, smelly things they were, too; and I’ll bet he eats ’em and they’ve affected his mind. I don’t know what to do with him!”
“Guess you’ll have to forget it and just let him alone,” said Willard soothingly.