Chick played a full period and showed himself superior to Fitz Savell as a defensive end. Unfortunately, though, he erased whatever good impression he may have made on the coaches when he failed miserably just at the end of the scrimmage to get into position for Galvin’s long throw down the field. Chick confessed later that he mistook the signal.
Neither side scored that afternoon and the battle ended with honors fairly even when it was almost too dark to see the ball ten yards away. Jake fussed and grumbled a good deal during the succeeding half hour, for it seemed that about every other man on the two teams had managed to get himself hurt in some fashion. The injuries were only casual and to be expected, but Jake, swashing iodine around and snipping tape, was a growling pessimist. At this rate, he confided to his grinning patients, there wouldn’t be a whole team left by a week from Saturday!
The evening sessions for the First Team interfered badly with Chick’s pool program. Mr. Cade generally dismissed them by eight-thirty, although you couldn’t count on it, but that left Chick only an hour in which to subjugate Mr. Devore and retrieve his losses, and an hour wasn’t nearly enough. So Chick, by Wednesday of that week, was tiptoeing into Number 21 around eleven o’clock, which was a very risky proceeding and one not calculated to sending him leaping out of bed, bright-eyed and refreshed, at seven o’clock the next morning. But getting even with Lester Devore had become almost an obsession with Chick, and school laws and training rules were forgotten. Bert was always fast asleep long before the truant returned, although he sometimes awoke enough to realize that his room-mate was moving about and to wonder what time it was.
It was on Thursday that Bert, finding mail in the box downstairs, tossed a letter across the table to Chick with the remark: “If you’re expecting any freight, Charles, it has arrove.” Chick looked at the corner of the buff envelope, which bore the name of the railroad followed by the legend “Freight Department,” and scowled. Bert busied himself with a letter of his own until an indignant exclamation from the other caught his attention.
“What a nerve!” growled Chick. “Wants me to pay him ten dollars right away because he’s ‘got use for the money’! Maybe I haven’t got use for it, too; or would if I had it! Why didn’t he say something about it last night?”
“Oh, that’s Devore writing to you, eh?” said Bert. “Well, see here, Chick, can’t you pay what you owe him and then keep away from him for a while? How much is it, anyway? Only ten?”
Chick shrugged, hesitated and answered: “No, it’s more than that, counting last night. It’s—it’s sixteen-twenty-five now.”
Bert whistled. “How much have you got?” he asked.
“About three and a half. And I owe you—”