“I—I guess I was thinking it began with D,” muttered Kid confusedly. “I—I’ll get the right volume, sir.”
He jumped up, seized the book from the table, and started for the door. But with his hand on the knob he heard the instructor’s fateful protest.
“Hold on, Fairchild, you might leave that volume here. I’m not through with it.”
Kid paused at the open door. “I—I was just going to put it back while I took the other one, sir. You know the rule is you can’t have but one book out at a time.”
“I guess that doesn’t apply to me, Fairchild,” Mr. Folsom laughed. “Still—well, take it along. As a matter of fact, my boy, I’ve forgotten what I was going to look up. This tristichous business of yours has knocked the other thing out of my head!”
“Yes, sir; I’m sorry, sir,” murmured Kid. Then he closed the door behind him, heaved a deep sigh of relief, dexterously transferred “Hairbreadth Harry” to his pocket and scuttled down the stairs. Two minutes later he was at the rink, Mr. Folsom and “tristichous” quite forgotten.
Practice was almost over when he joined the small audience along the barrier. On the further rink the Day Team had for once assembled in full strength and its members were putting in some hard licks in preparation for the final contest on the following Saturday. Kid watched them contemptuously for a while and then turned his attention to the House Team. Lanny, since his lucky shot in the last game, had been taken onto the team as a regular and was charging wildly around the ice, slashing and stumbling.
“Lanny’s getting better all the time,” remarked Bert.
“If he gets much better,” Kid responded, “he will break his neck!”