“Absotively! He was quite particular about you. ‘Be sure and fetch Bates,’ he said. So, if you know your business, you’ll go light on supper.”
“I shall anyway,” replied Dick. “I’m not hungry—much. Say, if you show any chance of making the team in earnest, Stan, they take you on one of the training tables, don’t they?”
“Yes, of course, but that needn’t worry you. Some fellows don’t get on until the season’s half over.”
“It’s half over now,” said Dick thoughtfully. “There are only four more games.”
“Is that right? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost your charming society very soon, Dick. Now let’s have a look at the—er—abrasions. Say, he certainly handed you something, didn’t he? Good it didn’t land a couple of inches further to the left. If it had it would have closed one of your cute little peepers. Wait till I get some water and stuff. Did you see a bottle of witch-hazel—I’ve got it! I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Dick critically observed his countenance during Stanley’s trip to the lavatory. There was a fine big lump over the right cheek-bone that made him look curiously lop-sided. He heartily wished he had kept his temper. The swelling would be there until morning at least and it wouldn’t require a giant intellect to guess the reason for it. Of course, he could say he had done it in football, only if he had got the contusion in that way Billy Goode or one of the assistants would have had it dressed with arnica long ago. Stanley came back with a mug of water and administered quite professionally, and a few minutes later Dick went across to supper redolent of witch hazel and very puffy as to his right cheek. Facetious remarks were many and Dick’s unsmiling explanation that he had “got it on the field” didn’t appear to deceive any of his table companions. The subsequent sight of Sandy Halden with a roseate blush around his right eye somewhat consoled Dick. By morning the rosy tinge would have changed to green and yellow, shading to purple.
There were eight fellows in Bob Peters’ room in Leonard Hall when Dick and Stanley arrived, and the eight didn’t include the host himself, for, as Sid Crocker explained, Bob had gone to the village to get some lemons. Dick met three or four fellows not previously known to him, one of them the spindle-shanked Arends he had noticed on the track earlier. At intervals other fellows arrived and, before Bob Peters returned, the two rooms, for Bob shared a study and bedroom with “Babe” Upton, were filled almost to capacity. Leonard was the newest of the Parkinson dormitories and, in comparison with such as Williams and Goss, was most luxurious. There was a real, “sure-enough” fireplace in the big study and in it this evening a cannel-coal fire was burning in spite of the fact that the windows were open. A folding card-table was set against the wall and a blue-and-white checked cloth hid enticing mysteries. Jerry Wendell aroused laughter by edging up to the table and with elaborate carelessness lifting a corner of the cloth. What he saw, however, he refused to divulge. Presently, into a babel of talk and laughter, hurried Bob with a bag of lemons.
“Hello, everybody!” he shouted. “Glad to see you. Babe, stick these on the bed in there. I bought a knife, too. Catch! How many lemons does one need for a dozen cans of sardines, Sid? I got two dozen. That ought to do, what?”
“I’d say so,” laughed Sid. “What’s your idea? Serve a sardine on every lemon? A half-dozen would have been enough, you chump.”