The left end of the line was causing trouble, too. Leroy, at tackle, appeared to be miscast badly, and Sanford, at end, was no match for his opponents at any time. Putney and Rhame, the most promising tackle and end substitutes, were far from satisfactory. That week was a week of experiments and confusion, and Coach Cade had a worried look quite foreign to his countenance. Three days of wretched weather added to the difficulties, for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were each cold and rainy, and by the last day the gridiron was not much better than a bog. Under these circumstances the team would scarcely be expected to make much progress, nor did it. Joe Myers was extremely peevish most of the week and Don Harris, visiting Number 16 Haylow one evening, remarked feelingly that he would be mighty glad when football was over for the season.
It was the miserable weather on Thursday that sent Willard over to Upton Hall. There had been an hour of indoor practice in the gymnasium, but the slippery ground and relentless downpour of rain had prohibited any use of the field, and at half-past four Willard found himself at a loose end. Martin had gone up to one of the society rooms in Academy Hall to play pool, and, although he had asked Willard to go with him, the latter, not being a member, had thought it best to decline. On the porch of the gymnasium he watched the swishing rain and the inundated paths and wondered what to do with himself. The answer came when his disconsolate gaze, roaming the cheerless world, lighted on Upton Hall. Recollection of Felix McNatt and his invitation came to him and, turning up his collar, he plunged into the deluge. He didn’t remember the number of McNatt’s room, but he could find it, he supposed. On the second floor, he knocked on a nearby door and obtained the information from a surprised occupant. Number 49 proved to be on the third floor, and Willard’s knock elicited a muffled “Come in!” As the door was locked, however, Willard did not immediately accept the invitation. “Wait a moment, please,” came McNatt’s voice from within. Then a chair was overturned, footsteps approached and the door was thrown open.
“Oh, hello!” greeted McNatt cordially. “Come in. Sorry to keep you waiting, but this thing’s out of order somewhere.” He leaned down to examine a bolt on the door frame, and then followed with his eyes a wire that proceeded from the bolt to the ceiling and across the latter, through a number of screw-eyes, to a point above the study table in the middle of the room. From there it descended to within convenient reach of a person seated at the table, terminating in a wooden knob. Willard viewed it with amused interest.
“Quite a scheme,” he said. “Your invention, McNatt?”
“Yes, it saves time, you see. Trouble is, though, it will get out of order. Ought to have small wheels for it to run on instead of those eyes. Let’s see now.” He pulled the knob down and the bolt slipped obediently from its socket with a business-like click. McNatt shrugged expressively. “All right now, you see. It binds somewhere, I guess. Sit down, Harmon.” He indicated a Morris chair in need of repair and Willard seated himself and looked around. The rooms in Upton were slightly larger, it seemed, than those in the newer dormitories, and Willard considered it a most fortunate circumstance, since a smaller room would never have accommodated all the articles that met his gaze. Besides the ordinary furnishings, there were two bookcases, a set of book shelves that hung on a wall and several boxes up-ended to serve as auxiliary tables. McNatt was telling Willard of his failure to find information regarding the use of the diving-rod in the location of metals and saying some bitter things about the reference department of the Academy library, but Willard was too much interested in the room to pay much heed.
The place looked like a compromise between a museum and a laboratory. Stuffed birds and small animals peered down with glassy eyes from all sides, a badly mounted pickerel on a board presented a hungry mouth, a snake skin depended from the corner of a framed picture that showed, in colors, what was probably a quiet Sunday afternoon in the Garden of Eden. It was an engaging picture, and Willard studied it curiously before his gaze went past. All the animals of which he had ever heard were depicted in it, and all were grouped about in peace and friendliness, even the lions in the foreground smiling on the beholder with truly benevolent countenances.
Methods of saving time or labor were apparent on every hand in the shape of mechanical appliances. A complicated arrangement of cords allowed of the lowering or raising of the window shades without approaching the windows; although Willard could not see that it was any farther from the table to the windows than it was to the side of the room where the cords hung! On the chair in which he sat a home-made bookholder was attached to one arm, while, by reaching underneath, one could pull forth an extension that accommodated one’s legs and feet, though probably not very comfortably. Later he discovered that a switch attached to the wall beside the head of McNatt’s bed in the alcove allowed that ingenious youth to put on or off the electric light without arising.
The bookcases held all sorts of things except books, although there were plenty of the latter distributed about in such unusual places as the window-seat and the tops of the two chiffoniers. Indeed, a set of encyclopedias of ancient vintage found lodgment along the baseboard on the floor. The bookcases had been consecrated to Science, it appeared, for in the nearer one dozens and dozens of birds’ eggs peered forth from cotton-batting nests and in the other McNatt’s collection of minerals was installed. The study table overflowed with a motley débris of books, papers, a microscope, pieces of wire, bits of wood, a blowpipe, a specimen-jar half filled with a dark-brown liquid that from its appearance and odor was plainly “working,” a mouse-trap—empty, as Willard was relieved to discover—and so many other things that it would be useless to attempt an enumeration of them. Willard was still looking about when McNatt interrupted his inspection.
“Would you like to see my minerals?” he asked.