He drew his long length out of the chair and took up his hat. Tracy, pale with anger, eyed him silently a moment. Then he leaped forward and sent him spinning back against the chair with a blow on the shoulder. The next moment he felt himself lifted bodily from his feet, turned head over heels, and deposited in that inglorious position on the broad leather couch. When things stopped revolving he saw Tidball’s calm face bending over him and felt his wrists held tightly together by fingers that grasped them like steel bands. He struggled violently until his opponent placed a bony knee on his chest. Then he subsided.
“Now keep still and listen to me,” said Tidball in quiet, undisturbed tones. “I’m a peaceable fellow, and don’t fight. But if you don’t remember what I’ve told you, I’m going to grab you just like this some day—and it’ll be when there are plenty of men looking on, too—and I’m going to spank you with a trunk-strap. If you don’t believe me,” he added with a slight grin, “I’ll show you the strap!”
“I’ll—I’ll kill——”
“No, you won’t do a thing,” the other interrupted sternly. “You’ll stay just where you are and behave yourself. If you don’t, I’ll lock you up in your bedroom; and that’s a liberty I don’t want to take.”
He released Tracy and stepped back. Tracy leaped to his feet, but something in the look of the eyes behind the steel-bowed spectacles persuaded him to keep his distance. Anthony picked up his hat from the floor, dusted it tenderly with his elbow, and walked to the door.
“Sorry there was any trouble, Gilberth,” he said soberly. “Maybe I lost my temper; it’s a mean one sometimes. Think over what I said.” He closed the door noiselessly behind him, and Tracy, shaking and choking with wrath, groaned futilely.
[CHAPTER XII]
A FLY TO LEFT-FIELDER
Jack sat on the players’ bench, chin in hands, elbows on knees, and watched Centerport High School go down in defeat. It was the first game of the season for the varsity, and, judged by high standards, it wasn’t anything to be proud of. At the end of the sixth inning the score was 9—0 in Erskine’s favor, and not one of the nine runs had been earned. The error column on the score-sheet was so filled with little round dots that, from where Jack sat, it looked as though some one had sprinkled it with pepper. If, so far, there had been any encouraging features they were undoubtedly Joe Perkins’s catching of Gilberth’s erratic curves and Knox’s work at shortstop. The outfield had conscientiously muffed every fly that had come its way, and only the quick recovery of the ball had, on several occasions, prevented High School from scoring.