“We’re giving it to you on the twenty. Say, was Dinny awfully cross?”
“Rather waxy. Talked a lot of sarcasm. Advised me to forget my social obligations or something like that.”
“I’m awfully sorry, chum. It was my fault. I wish Fallow would—would choke or——”
“Fall into his mustache and get lost,” suggested Hugh. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to raise one like that. Sometime we’ll go over to Needham and pretend we want a suit. I’d like you to see that mustache, Bert.”
“It seems to have made a big impression on you,” Bert laughed.
Hugh nodded soberly. “It did. It—it’s awe-inspiring, colossal, epochal—er——”
“That’ll be about all! Half’s over. I guess I’ll go back to the other bench. See you later, Hugh. Hope Dinny will let you in this half.”
“He won’t. He doesn’t love me a bit today. As Mr. Smiley would say, ‘Non sum qualis eram.’”
“You’re a silly ass,” laughed Bert. “Put that into Latin!”
Hugh’s prophecy proved correct. Mr. Crowley did not relent. Nor did he once appear even to recall Hugh’s existence. And after the game was over and first team had won by two touchdowns—no goals were attempted—Hugh followed the others up to the field house and changed, denying himself, however, a shower since he had certainly not earned it, and then proceeded rather disconsolately back to Lothrop to find three messages in the O-P pigeon-hole of the letter box in the first floor corridor. Some obliging person had written the telegrams down in his absence. The first was from his mother in Philadelphia explaining that an unexpected visit to friends in the country had delayed her reception of his message and saying that the money had been sent and that she hoped the delay had not mattered. Another was from the telegraph office requesting him to call and receipt for a sum of money, and the third, rather incoherent, was from an evidently greatly perturbed Bowles. Hugh showed them to Bert when the latter came in.