“Easy there, Tom, easy!” he counseled. “We won’t have any scrapping just now.”
Orkney yielded, reluctantly.
“Might as well let me polish him off,” he grumbled. “It’ll have to be done sooner or later.”
“Very likely—but better not now,” said Sam quietly.
“Sure! Always Safety First!” jeered Zorn; and walked away, grinning wryly.
CHAPTER II
THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB
The Safety First Club, to which Zorn had alluded so cynically, bore its name for what its members regarded as good and sufficient reasons.
The club had come into existence in the most natural fashion imaginable. That is, a little group of boys who liked one another had gathered about Sam Parker, had reached a simple but effective organization, and had been permitted to take possession of an unused stable on the premises of Step Jones’s father. This they had fitted up as headquarters, furnishing the place as best they might. Then had happened a series of incidents, of adventures and misadventures, which had served to impress upon the chums the penalties life exacts for heedlessness and carelessness. They had woefully misjudged Tom Orkney, for example—Tom, it may be explained, was not of the original band—and before they came to understanding of the sterling qualities which eventually won him an election to the club, they had undergone experiences well calculated to drive home the lesson of the danger in overhasty thought or action.
Now, it is not to be understood that old heads had been put upon young shoulders. The boys still conducted themselves as healthy, active, well meaning but fallible lads of seventeen or thereabouts, and not as world-worn philosophers of seventy-one. They made mistakes—lots of mistakes. They formed their judgments not on great knowledge but on such knowledge as they had—and when a blunder was made, they tried not to repeat it. And they strove to play the game fairly. Doubtless you know a dozen boys like these, and fancy them not the less because you find them very human.
Sam Parker had put into effect the guiding rule of the club in averting hostilities between Orkney and Edward Zorn, but he had by no means avoided the complications growing out of the affair of Trojan Walker’s Cicero.