[CHAPTER XVIII]
A FALLING-OUT
The next morning Cal awoke with a feeling of excitement difficult to account for during the first moments of consciousness. Then he remembered that today was the day of the second football contest and that his new suit of clothes awaited him in the closet. He wasn’t sure which excited him the most, the football game or the new clothes. Anyway, the latter came first. He sprang out of bed, washed and then got the suit from the closet. Ned, sitting on the edge of his bed, looked on silently, unwashed and undressed, while his roommate clothed himself in the new apparel. Cal pulled at the waistcoat in a vain endeavor to make it set better and yanked the coat up at the back in the hope that it would somewhere come into relationship with his collar. Both efforts were fruitless. All the time he was embarrassedly aware of Ned’s unflinching stare. At last Ned spoke.
“Take them off,” he said quietly.
“Wh-what?”
“Take them off.”
“Why? What for? What’s the matter with them?” Cal faltered.
“Matter!” cried Ned. “What isn’t the matter? They look—they look like a couple of gunny-sacks! They don’t fit anywhere! The trousers are the same size all the way down and are three inches too long for you. The vest wrinkles across the top and the coat—” Words failed him for a moment. “The coat is the worst I ever saw! It doesn’t touch you anywhere except on the shoulders, and one sleeve’s an inch longer than the other! Matter with it! Gee, what’s right with it?”
“It—it was cheap,” Cal defended.
“It looks it!” was the disgusted reply. “It’s the ugliest cloth I ever saw in my life. We used to have a Newfoundland dog that was about twelve years old and had grown gray and grizzled. I couldn’t stand looking at that suit, Cal. It would remind me too much of poor old Charlie.”