The blow having fallen, Ned, who had already discounted it, cheered up quite remarkably. After all, he told himself, he had saved Laurie, and last autumn Laurie had saved him from something very close to disgrace, and so this sacrifice only somewhat evened accounts. He allowed himself to be persuaded to accompany the others on the Sunday afternoon walk, only pledging Laurie to say nothing of his suspension. It was not until Monday noon that the news leaked out, and not until hours after that that the school began to connect the incident of the wrecked automobile with Ned’s fate. Even then most of those who knew Ned intimately refused to believe that there could be any connection between the two things. Questioned, Ned was very uncommunicative, and by Tuesday even his closest friends began to waver in their faith.
Laurie went back to the baseball fold on Monday. Kewpie’s report about Elk was true. Elk was nursing a lame wrist. He had, it seemed, hurt it in wrestling with his room-mate. It had kept him out of the game Saturday, and it prevented his doing any catching on Monday; but on Tuesday the injured wrist appeared as good as ever, and Laurie, who had been temporarily elevated to the position of first substitute catcher, again dropped into third place. The Farview game was due on Wednesday, which was likewise Class day and the final day of the school term. On Monday Coach Mulford was very easy with the first-string players but gave the substitutes a hard afternoon’s work. Laurie caught four of the five innings that the substitutes played against the scrub team. In the final inning he gave place to Simkins and took that youth’s berth at first base. Tuesday saw the whole squad hard at work in the final preparation for the enemy, and no player, from Captain Dave Brewster down to the least of the substitutes, had a minute’s respite. “You fellows can rest all you want to after to-morrow,” said the coach. “You can spend all summer resting if you like. To-day you’re going to work and work hard.” Even Kewpie, who knew that Fate held nothing for him, was subjected to almost cruel exertion. He pitched to Laurie until his arm almost rebelled, and he was made to “dummy pitch” from the mound and then field the balls that Pinky batted at him and to all sides of him. And he ran bases, too, and Kewpie considered that the final indignity and privately thought that the least Pinky could do was to leave him in peace to his sorrow. But before Tuesday’s practice began other things of more importance to our story happened. While dressing Tuesday morning Laurie let fall a remark that led to the clearing away of mistakes and misconceptions.
“You must have gone to bed with your clothes on the other night,” he observed. “If you didn’t, you sure made a record!”
Ned stared. “What other night?” he asked.
Laurie floundered. Neither of them had referred to the matter since Sunday. “Why—well, you know. The night you got in the window,” Laurie explained apologetically.
“The night I got in the window! Are you crazy?”
“Oh, well,” muttered Laurie, “all right. I didn’t mean to make you huffy.”
He went on with his dressing, but Ned still stared at him. After a minute Ned asked: “Look here, old son, what made you say that? About me getting in the window, I mean.”
“Why, nothing.” Laurie wanted peace in the family. “Nothing at all.”