“The dickens I don’t!” scoffed Renneker. “I’m as stiff as a crutch. Be a good fellow, Grant, and stop scolding.” Renneker looked at the letter in his hand, returned it to its envelope and placed it back in his pocket with a smile of resignation. “Just plain nut,” he said. “That’s what he is.”
Leonard, watching, was suddenly realizing that this new acquaintance of his was a very likeable chap and that, although he did feel thoroughly out of patience with him just now, he was getting to have a sort of affection for him. Of course he wouldn’t have had Renneker suspect the fact for an instant, but there it was! The big fellow’s story seemed to explain a good deal, such as, for instance, that the calm superiority affected by him had really been a blind to conceal the fact that he was secretly in a state of nervous apprehension, in short a colossal bluff that not even Coach Cade had had the nerve to call! It must have been, Leonard reflected sympathetically, rather a job to play good football and know that at any moment exposure might occur. And, after all, that letter of George Renneker’s had rather won Leonard. Of course the fellow was an irresponsible, hair-brained ass, but, nevertheless, the reader had seemed to find something likeable in the writer of that amazing epistle, and he understood somewhat better why Gordon had felt it worth while to protect George even at the cost of his own undoing. He wasn’t frowning any longer when Renneker looked back from a momentary inspection of the flying landscape beyond the car window. Renneker must have noted the change, for he asked:
“Decided to overlook my transgressions?”
Leonard nodded, smiling faintly. “Yes, although I still think you’re all wrong. Let me tell you one thing, too. If—if”—he stumbled a little there—“if you’re doing this because you think I’d be—be disappointed about not playing, Renneker, you can just quit it right now. I never expected to play in this game—anyhow, I haven’t for a good while—and it won’t mean a thing to me if I don’t. So if that’s it, or if that has anything to do with it—”
“My dear chap,” replied Renneker soothingly, “when you know me better you’ll realize that I’m not a Sir Launcelot or a—a Galahad. Rest quite easy.”
It wasn’t, though, a positive denial, and Leonard was by no means convinced. He looked doubtfully, even suspiciously at the somewhat quizzical countenance of the other and subsided. And then a trainman banged open a door and shouted “La-a-akeville! Lakeville!” and Leonard hurried back for his suit-case.
They went to the hotel for luncheon, walking up from the station and pretending they didn’t know that they were objects of interest all the way along the five blocks. There remained the better part of an hour before the meal was to be served, and after depositing their bags in the room that was to serve them for dressing purposes, most of the party descended again to the street and set off to see the town. Slim claimed Leonard as his companion, but Leonard begged off rather mysteriously and Slim set out a trifle huffily in company with Appel and Menge. Leonard then set out to find Mr. Cade, and after several unsuccessful inquiries had failed to discover that gentleman, Tod Tenney came skipping down the stairs and, his escape blocked by Leonard, revealed the fact that Mr. Cade and Mr. Fadden were in Room 17. Leonard, likewise scorning the snail-like elevator, climbed the stairs and found the room. Mr. Cade’s voice answered his knock. The coach and his associate were sitting in straight-back chairs in front of a long window, their feet on the sill and pipes going busily. Mr. Fadden looked around, waving the smoke clouds from before him with the newspaper he held, and said sotto voce: “One of the boys, Cade.”
“Can I speak to you a moment, sir?” asked Leonard.
Mr. Cade’s feet came down from the sill with a bang and he swung around. “Oh, hello, Grant! Why, certainly. Anything wrong?”
“No, sir. It’s about—” He hesitated and glanced dubiously at Mr. Fadden.