“Sanford Halden?” Stanley nodded. “Know who he is, yes. He’s a sort of a nut. Goes in for everything and never lands. Used to think he was a pole-vaulter. Then he tried the sprints and—well, I guess he’s had a go at about everything. The only thing I ever heard of his doing half-way well is basket-ball. I believe he’s fairly good at that. Usually gets fired, though, for scrapping. They call him Sandy. He’s a Fourth Class fellow.”
“Is he? I thought he was probably Third. He must be older than he looks then.”
“I guess he’s only seventeen,” said Stanley. “He’s smart at studies. He’s one of the kind who always knows what he’s going to be asked and always has the answer. It’s a gift, Dick.” And Stanley sighed.
“He’s going to have another gift,” laughed Dick, “if he gets fresh with me! Talk about your stupids! He was the limit today. Had hold up the whole squad while he was being taught the simplest play there is. Then he had the cheek to threaten to punch my nose! I hope they let me run a squad tomorrow and put him on it!”
“Calm yourself, Dickie. Halden’s a joke. Don’t let him bother you. Let’s go to supper. Don’t forget this is movie night.”
Going to the movies was a regular Saturday night event at Parkinson and usually a good half of the school was to be found at one or the other of the two small theatres in the village. Tonight, perhaps because of the heat, the stream that trickled across the campus to the head of School Street as soon as supper was finished was smaller than usual, and Dick and Stanley, Blash and his room-mate, Sid Crocker, commented on the fact as they started off.
“The trouble is,” hazarded Sid, “they don’t have the right sort of pictures. Gee, they haven’t shown Bill Hart since ’way last winter!”
“How do you know! They may have had a Hart picture while we’ve been away. What I kick about is this educational stuff. I suppose it doesn’t cost them much, but I’m dead tired of Niagara Falls from an airplane and gathering rubber in Brazil—or wherever they do gather it—and all that trash.” Blash shook his head disgustedly. “Hope they’ll have a real, corking-good serial this year. Nothing like a good serial to keep a fellow young and zippy.”
“They give us too much society drool,” said Stanley. “Pictures about Lord Blitherington losing the old castle and his string of hunters and going to America and stumbling on a gold mine and going home again and swatting the villain and rescuing the heroine just as she’s going to marry the old guy with the mutton-chop whiskers. I wish they’d let her marry him sometimes. Guess it would serve her right!”
“Well, they’ve got a pretty good bill at the Temple tonight,” said Dick. “That Western picture looks great.”