“Is that so?” rejoined Ray, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I never suspected there was anything back of it when he asked me to play with him that afternoon. Now, I remember he did seem to take his defeat pretty badly. Still, it was his business. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Howard is very conceited about his tennis playing, so you injured him at his most sensitive point.”
“Well, I’m sorry and yet, I don’t believe he bears a grudge against me.”
“He may have more reason now, after his humiliation this evening.”
“Well, let him, then,” said Ray. “He brought it on himself. If he was foolish enough to bet, he must suffer the consequences, and if he will make foolish speeches, as he did tonight, he must stand the result of that, too. He can’t blame me. I haven’t time to bother with him—which reminds me that I have to prepare for a recitation in astronomy tomorrow, and I must get about it at once or I won’t be in bed before midnight.”
He looked at his watch as we walked out of the room.
“Phew!” he exclaimed. “It is half past nine—I’m off—you will hear from me later—good night.”
And Ray walked hastily away toward Warburton Hall, the handsome new dormitory in which his apartments were located.
As I parted company from Tony Larcom, my first intention was to go immediately to my room, but the air being balmy and inviting, I walked leisurely down the wide pathway toward the gate. Once there, I seated myself by one of the old cannons, and gave myself up to the pleasant influences of the quiet night.
I was thinking over the incidents of the meeting, its interesting results, and how they would affect our baseball prospects. Then I fell to contrasting the noise and excitement of an hour before with the silence that now reigned over the peaceful campus. A sense of drowsiness came over me as I pursued these contemplations, a drowsiness that gradually increased until my head sank down, and at last, stretching myself out at full length, I fell asleep.