“This ain’t no cattle train,” he said. “If you fellers wants to raise a racket, go ahead into the baggage room, and give the other passengers a show.”
The noisier ones, accordingly, under Percy Randall’s leadership, betook themselves to the baggage compartment at the forward end of the car, where they had free scope for their specialties; while several of us remained to talk our experiences over more quietly.
“I tell you what it is, Ray,” said Dick Palmer, “you are a trump. Your cute little stroke with Beard was as great a victory as the game.”
“What particularly pleased me,” answered Ray, “was Beard’s agreement to play the deciding game on our grounds. I had hardly hoped to win that point. I expected, of course, that he would reject the proposition positively, or at least that he would demand that the question of the grounds should be decided by lot. I was prepared to meet him in that demand if he had insisted; so when he accepted my proposition as I first stated it, he nearly took my breath away.”
“What could have made him so obliging, I wonder?” said Dick.
“Oh, he carried the high and mighty air. He was so cocksure of winning the game that he was ready to agree to anything that depended on his losing it. He smiled in a superior way when I spoke to him, and used a condescending tone as much as to say, ‘Oh, yes, I might just as well agree with you as not. It won’t make any difference, for we are going to wipe up the field with you anyhow.’ You may imagine, then, how he felt when Arnold called him a fool before all those fellows on the piazza of the Wyman Hotel.”
“When had we better play the deciding game?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Ray. “We can tell better after thinking it over—the later the better; for I, for one, shall be very busy during the next week preparing for final examinations. Tony!”