FOURTH DOWN

[IN THE VERY CENTER OF IT, PLUNGING, FIGHTING, WAS HEMING]

FOURTH DOWN!

BY

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

AUTHOR OF “THE PLAY THAT WON,”
“THE LOST DIRIGIBLE,” ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

FOURTH DOWN

CHAPTER I
BACK TO SCHOOL

“We ought to be there in about twenty minutes,” observed Arnold Deering, glancing at his watch.

One of his companions in the day-coach tossed the magazine he had been idly glancing through, to the top of the pile of suitcases beside him, yawned widely, and nodded without enthusiasm.

“If nothing happens,” he agreed.

“What’s going to happen, you chump?”

“Nothing, I suppose. Only, something might. There might be an earthquake, or the train might jump the track, or——”

“Or you might talk sense, Frank! As for jumping the track, this old train couldn’t jump a crack in the floor! I guess you’re wishing something would happen so you wouldn’t have to go back.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Frank Lamson answered doubtfully. “I guess I don’t mind—much. School’s all right after a day or two. It’s getting into the swing, just at first, that’s hard.”

“In the interest of education,” proclaimed Arnold pompously, “I move that summer vacations be abolished.”

“Put it the other way around,” said Frank, “and I’ll second the motion. Joking aside, though, summer vacations are fine, but they certainly spoil a chap for hard work.” He shook his head dolefully. He was a heavily-built youth of seventeen, but the heaviness was that of bone and sinew rather than of fat. With regular features, dark hair and eyes and a healthy skin, he was undeniably good-looking, although the mouth somehow suggested a sort of lazy arrogance and led an observer to the conclusion that he was not invariably as amiable as at present. He was almost painfully correct as to attire.

“Work!” sighed Arnold. “Why introduce unpleasant subjects? Ever since I struck Yardley fellows have dinned it into me that this year is the toughest of all. ‘If you think Third Class is hard,’ they said, ‘just wait till you’re in Second!’ It doesn’t sound good to me, Frank!”

“Piffle! Fellows always talk that way. Even First Class fellows shake their heads and tell you they’re the hardest worked bunch in school, and any one with a grain of sense knows that the last year’s a perfect cinch. Anyway, you don’t need to worry. You’re starting clean. I’ve got a condition to work off, worse luck. I’m the one who ought to be sore.”

“Too bad,” said Arnold sympathetically. “Still, ‘Old Tige’s’ bark is worse than his bite, Frank. You’ll get clear all right.”

“Hope so.” Frank leaned across the piled-up luggage to look through the window. A fleeting glimpse of the sun-flecked surface of Long Island Sound met his vision, and he frowned, mentally contrasting the lazy, frolic-filled days of the passing summer with the duties drawing nearer every minute. “Light House Point,” he said, nodding. “Greenburg in ten minutes.”

“If nothing happens,” quoted Arnold, with a smile. Like the boy opposite him, he was seventeen years of age, and, like him, too, he was extremely well-dressed. But in Arnold Deering’s case the attire appeared to stop short of effort, or it may have been that he was less conscious of it. While it is fair to call Frank good-looking it is no exaggeration to say that Arnold was handsome. A straight nose under a broad forehead, deep brown eyes, a mouth showing good-temper, and a round chin, all went to make up a countenance extremely attractive. He wore his dark brown hair brushed straight back, a style that went well both with his face and with his height and slenderness. There was nothing effeminate about him, though. He was not what fellows contemptuously call a “pretty boy” and his slim frame was well-muscled and suggested the best of physical condition.

“Don’t think I’d mind if something did happen,” answered Frank, rather disconsolately, “so long as it put off the evil day.”

“Cheer up, old thing!” laughed Arnold. “To-morrow you’ll be as gay as a lark, won’t he, Toby?”

The third member of the party, who, next the window, had been occupied with a magazine for the last half-hour, turned a pair of very blue eyes toward the speaker and smiled. Although he had been following the story closely, the conversation of his companions had not been entirely lost to him, and Arnold’s question had reached him between the last word on page 19 and the continuation on an elusive page 134. “I’d never expect to see Frank as gay as a lark,” he replied readily. “If you had said as happy as a seagull, though——” He returned to the search for page 134.

“Seagull?” protested Arnold. “The silly things never are happy! They’re always crying and making a fuss.”

“Oh, they’re happy enough,” said the other, with a twinkle in his eyes, “but they don’t want to think so!”

Arnold laughed and Frank said, “You go to the dickens, Toby,” but grinned a little as he said it. There had been a time when he would have taken Toby Tucker’s jest not so amiably, but closer intimacy with that youth had rendered his dignity less tender.

“Toby’s got you sized up, Frank,” laughed Arnold. “You do like to grouch a bit, you know.”

“We all do, at times,” said Toby, comfortingly. He found the page he was seeking and settled back again. But Arnold plucked the magazine from his hands and tossed it to the opposite seat.

“We’re nearly in Greenburg, T. Tucker,” he said. “Sit up like a gentleman and talk to us.”

Toby looked reproachfully at his friend and regretfully at the magazine. Then he smiled. He had rather a remarkable smile, had Toby. It made you forget that his nose was too short, his chin almost aggressively square, his tanned face too liberally freckled, his hair undeniably red. It made him almost good-looking and eminently likable. Tobias Tucker’s smile was a valuable asset to him, although he didn’t know it.

“What shall I talk about?” he asked. “Want me to tell you a dreadfully funny story?”

“What’s it about?” demanded Arnold, suspiciously.

“About old Cap’n Gaines,” replied Toby, innocently. “He——”

“Help!” cried the others with unflattering unanimity.

“If you ever try to tell that again, Toby,” added Arnold, very stern and very solemn, “we’ll——”

But what was to happen in such an event was never told, for what happened at that moment very effectually ended Arnold’s discourse. There was a terrific grinding of brakes, a loud hissing sound, and an irresistible tendency on the part of every one and everything in the day-coach to proceed hurriedly to the front door. Because of various obstructions none succeeded, but all did their best. Arnold landed in Frank’s lap and Toby draped himself over the piled-up luggage, his head hanging over the back of the seat ahead. A cloud of unsuspected dust filled the car as, with a series of emphatic and uncomfortable jerks, the train came to a standstill. To the accompaniment of a vocal confusion of cries, exclamations, and grunts, the occupants of the car disentangled themselves from each other or picked themselves from the floor.

“Get—off—me!” groaned Frank. “You’ve—broken—my neck!”

“What was it?” gasped Arnold, relieving the other of his unwelcome embrace. “Are we wrecked?”

“I am, anyway!” growled Frank. “Where’s my hat? Oh, thanks!” He accepted it from a dazed occupant of the seat ahead. Toby Tucker retired from his graceful position atop the suitcases and observed Arnold questioningly, his straw hat tilted down to the bridge of his nose. Arnold chuckled. “Guess it was Frank’s earthquake,” he said.

“Keep your places!” admonished a trainman, putting his head in the forward door. “Obstruction on the track! No danger!”

“Gee!” muttered Toby. “That was some stop, fellows!”

“It sure was!” agreed Frank emphatically, feeling doubtfully of his neck. “It nearly snapped my head off! And then Arn landed on me like a ton of bricks.”

“Let’s go see,” said Toby. “What’s this?” He raised a foot from which dangled Arnold’s hat. “I’m sorry. Sort of mussed, I’m afraid.”

Arnold took it, viewed it ruefully and put it on. “It’s all Frank’s fault,” he grumbled as he joined the exodus through the nearer door. “He insisted that something was going to happen, and it did!”

How near that something had come to being a catastrophe was revealed to them when they pushed their way through the throng at the head of the train. Not eighty feet distant from the pilot of the throbbing locomotive stood a lone box-car, its forward truck lodged against its rear. It was loaded and sealed and marked “Greenburg.” A curve in the track behind had hidden it from the fireman’s sight until there had remained just space in which to avert a collision.

“How do you suppose it got here?” asked Frank.

“Front truck got loose and the car broke its coupling, so they say,” volunteered a boy beside him.

“Hello, Billy,” greeted Frank. “You on the train? I didn’t see you. I suppose this will hold us up awhile, eh?”

“I thought they always had a caboose on the tail-end of a freight,” objected Arnold.

“I believe they do,” agreed Billy Temple, “but this car and some more were on a siding about a mile back and they were sort of switching ’em into the Greenburg yard. Hello, Tucker. What car were you fellows in?”

“Fourth, I guess,” answered Arnold. “If it hadn’t been for Frank, though, I’d have landed in the first when we stopped! Felt as if my spine was being pushed right through to the front of me!”

“Me too,” chuckled Temple. “There was an old codger in my car with a basket of eggs. He got on at that last stop we made. There wasn’t much room, so he kept the eggs in his lap. Then Mr. Engineer put the airbrakes on and—Bingo!”

“What happened?” demanded Arnold delightedly.

“Why, the old gentleman and the eggs went on top of a fat man in front. Talk about your omelets! Oh, boy!”

“Let’s go back and sit down,” suggested Toby when Temple’s narrative had been properly appreciated. “It’s too hot out here. And I suppose we won’t get started again for an hour.”

“More like two,” grumbled Frank. “They’ll have to send a wrecking train and lift that car out of the way. Rotten luck!”

“Hark to the plaintive wail of the seagull,” murmured Toby.

“That’s right, Frank,” Arnold chuckled. “Ten minutes ago you wanted something to happen to keep you from getting to Yardley, and now——”

“That’s all right,” answered Frank haughtily, “but it’s nearly four, and supper’s at six.”

“True, O Solomon! I get your viewpoint. There is much in what you say. Still, if we get moving again in an hour or so——”

“We might walk, if it wasn’t for the bags,” mused Toby. “It can’t be more than eight or nine miles.”

“Eight or nine miles!” moaned Arnold. “And on an empty stomach!”

“We-ell, I meant on the railroad,” said Toby demurely, “but if you prefer——”

“Wish we had a pack of cards,” said Frank gloomily as they returned to their car. “We might have a three-handed game of something. Or get Billy Temple in here.”

“I’m going to finish that story I was reading,” said Toby. “You two play.”

“Well, if we can find some cards,” began Arnold, leading the way to their seats. Then: “What’s the matter with the chap over there, Toby? Nose-bleed?” he asked.

Toby, following his friend’s gaze, saw a pale-faced, large-eyed boy of perhaps fifteen holding a crimson-stained handkerchief to his face. “Guess so,” said Toby. “Maybe he got bumped. Wonder if he knows how to stop it?”

“Do you?” Arnold asked, pushing by to his seat.

“Yes, I know four or five ways. Guess I’ll ask him.”

He left the others and walked back three seats to where the boy was hunched somewhat disconsolately beside an open window. He was a surprisingly unattractive chap, Toby thought, but maybe he couldn’t help that unwholesome white complexion. But he could help, Toby told himself a moment later, that very soiled collar he was wearing!

“Nose-bleed?” asked Toby smilingly.

The boy shook his head, looking up over the stained handkerchief with an expression of sullen suspicion in his staring brown eyes.

“What’s the trouble then?” Toby took the vacant seat. “Let me have a look, won’t you?”

After a second of hesitation the boy removed the handkerchief, revealing a short but deep cut on his upper lip. It was bleeding profusely. Toby clucked sympathetically. “How’d you get it?” he asked.

“I was getting a drink back there,” muttered the boy, “when the train stopped. It threw me against the arm of a seat, I guess. Anyway, first thing I knew I was on the floor.” His tone was resentful and his look seemed to hold Toby to blame for the accident.

“Too bad,” said the latter kindly. “Got another handkerchief with you?” The boy shook his head. “I’ll lend you one, then. I’ll get it and wash the cut well. You step back to the water tank.”

Toby returned to his seat and dragged his suitcase from the pile. “Fellow’s got a nasty cut on his lip,” he explained. “Fell down when the train slowed up and hit on something.”

“What are you going to do?” inquired Frank. “Operate on him?”

“Find a handkerchief for him.”

“Who is he? One of our chaps?” asked Arnold.

“I don’t know. He may be. Doesn’t look it. Get your enormous feet out of the way. I’ll be back in a sec.”

“If you want any one to administer the ether——” suggested Frank.

Toby laughed and joined his patient by the rear door. There he gave the wound a thorough washing, while the boy scowled and grunted. Then, seeing that the sides of the cut ought to be brought together, he left the other with a folded handkerchief pressed to the wound and made his way forward to the baggage car. When he returned he had a roll of surgeon’s tape and a wad of absorbent cotton. The boy protested in his sullen way against further repairs, but Toby overruled him. “You don’t want a nasty scar there,” he said cheerfully. “You hold this cotton there until I get the tape ready. That’s it. All right now. Hold steady, now. I’m not hurting you. There! Now we’ll roll this cotton in the handkerchief and you can stop the blood with it. I don’t think it will bleed much longer. Have you got far to go?”

“Wissining,” muttered the boy.

“Oh, do you live in Wissining?”

“No, I’m going to school there,” answered the other resentfully. “I thought maybe you were, too.”

“Why, yes, I am. You must be a new boy then.”

The other nodded. “I’ve never seen the rotten place,” he said.

“Really?” asked Toby rather coldly. “Well, I hope you’ll like it better than you think.”

The boy stared back in his sullen fashion. “Shan’t,” he muttered. Toby shrugged.

“That’s up to you, I guess.” He nodded curtly and moved away, feeling relieved at the parting. But the boy stopped his steps.

“Say, what’ll I do with this handkerchief?” he asked.

“Oh, throw it away, please,” said Toby.

If he had done so this story might have been different.

CHAPTER II
NEW QUARTERS

At eight o’clock that evening, having reached Wissining only a little more than an hour late and done full justice to supper, Toby and Arnold were busily unpacking and setting things to rights in Number 12 Whitson, which, as those who know Yardley Hall School will remember, is the granite dormitory building facing southward, flanked on the west by the equally venerable Oxford Hall and on the east by the more modern Clarke. There were those who liked the old-time atmosphere of Whitson; its wooden stairways, its low ceilings, its deep window embrasures and wide seats; who even forgave many a lack of convenience for the sake of the somewhat dingy home-likeness. Perhaps, too, they liked to feel themselves heirs to the legends and associations that clustered about the building. On the other hand, there were scoffers dwelling more luxuriously in Clarke or Dudley or Merle who declared that the true reason for Whitson’s popularity was that the dining hall, known at Yardley as Commons, occupied the lower floor and that fellows living in the building consequently enjoyed an advantage over those dwelling in the other dormitories.

Not all the Whitson rooms were desirable, however. On the third floor, for instance, was one that Toby, when he looked about the comparative grandeur of Number 12, remembered without regrets. He had passed last year under its sloping roof in an atmosphere of benzine and cooking. The benzine odor was due to the fact that he had conducted a fairly remunerative business in cleaning and pressing clothes, the smell of cooking to the fact that the room’s one window was directly above the basement kitchen. This year the atmosphere promised to be sweeter, for Number 12 was on the front of the building, away from the kitchen, and Toby had retired from business.

There were moments when he viewed his retirement with alarm, for, although his father had assured him that sufficient money would be forthcoming to meet expenses if Toby managed carefully, he couldn’t quite forget that, should anything interrupt the prosperity of the boat-building business at home, there would be nothing to fall back on. But Arnold had made the abandoning of the cleaning and pressing industry a condition of his invitation to a share of Number 12. “Homer’s not coming back, Toby,” he had announced in August. (Homer Wilkins had been Arnold’s roommate the preceding year.) “I wish you’d come down to Number 12 with me. It won’t cost you much more than that cell up in Poverty Row; and that’s an awful dive, anyway. Of course, you can’t go on with that beastly, smelly clothes-cleaning stunt, but you weren’t going to anyway, were you? I mean, since your father’s business has picked up so this spring and summer you won’t have to, eh?”

Frankly, Toby had fully intended to. Being even partly self-supporting gives one a feeling of independence that one hates to lose. But Toby said nothing of that. He thought it over and, because he was very fond of Arnold, as Arnold was of him, and because Number 22 had been pretty bad at times, he yielded. This evening he was very glad that he had, as, pausing with a crumpled pair of trousers in his hand midway between his battered trunk and his closet, he viewed again the quiet comfort of the big square room. Wilkins had removed a few things, but they were not missed, and Arnold’s folks were sending down another chair and a small bookcase from New York for Toby’s use. A fellow ought, he reflected, to be very happy in such a place; and he felt renewed gratitude to Arnold for choosing him to share its comforts. Arnold might easily have picked one of several fellows as a roommate without surprising Toby: Frank, for instance. Arnold had known Frank longer than he had known Toby. Reflecting in such fashion, Toby remained immovable so long that Arnold, who had for the moment abandoned more important business to put together a new loose-leaf notebook under the mellow glow of the droplight on the big table, looked across curiously.

“What’s your difficulty, T. Tucker?” he asked. “Gone to sleep on your feet? Reaction, I suppose, after the near-trainwreck!”

“I was just thinking,” answered Toby slowly, “that this is an awfully jolly room and that it was mighty good of you to let me come in with you.”

“Well, the room’s all right. (How in the dickens does this thing catch?) I like it a heap better than those mission-furnished rooms in Clarke. Of course, next year I suppose I’ll try for Dudley, with the rest of the First Class fellows, although I don’t know about that, either. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll stick here. It’s getting a whole lot like home, Toby. But as for its being good for me to have you with me here, why, that’s sort of funny, T. Tucker. Guess you’re not the only one that’s—er—that’s benefited, what? Rather like it myself, if you must know. Homer and I got on pretty well, all things considered, but that was mainly because he’s too lazy to quarrel with you about anything. Personally, Toby, I like a row now and then. It sort of—clears the atmosphere, so to speak. That’s why I thought of you. You’ve got such a perfectly beastly disposition and such a rotten temper that I can have a scrap whenever I feel the need of it. So, you see, it was pure selfishness, after all, old thing.”

Toby smiled and went over to the closet with his burden. “We started with a scrap, anyway,” he said. “Remember it, Arn?”

“Perfectly. I intimated that your hair was sort of reddish and you didn’t like it. So you came at me like a cyclone and we both went into the harbor. I remember it perfectly. It started because you wanted twenty-four cents a gallon for some gasoline.”

“Twenty-two. You said you paid only twenty in New York.”

“Anyway, I offered you less than you asked, and you said you’d pump it out of the tank again, and——”

“Good thing I didn’t have to try it,” laughed Toby. “That was only a little over a year ago, Arn! Why, it seems years!”

“Much has happened since then, T. Tucker,” replied Arnold, tossing the notebook on the table. “Events have transpired. In the short space of—let me see; this is September—in the short space of fifteen months you were rescued from a living-death in the Johnstown High School and became a person of prominence at Yardley Hall!”

“Prominent as a cleaner and presser of clothes,” laughed Toby.

“Nay, nay, prominent as one swell hockey player, Toby, and also, if I mistake not, as a rescuer of drowning youths. Don’t forget you’re a hero, old thing. By the way, I wonder if young Lingard’s back. For your sake, I hope he isn’t. His gratitude to you for saving him from a watery death was a bit embarrassing to you, I thought!”

Toby smiled ruefully. “You didn’t think, you knew,” he said grimly. Arnold laughed.

“To see you slinking around a corner to evade the kid was killing, Toby! And he is such a little rotter, too! While you were rescuing, why didn’t you pull out something a little more select?”

“Oh, Tommy isn’t a bad sort really,” responded Toby earnestly. “He—he just didn’t get the right sort of bringing-up, I suppose.”

“Maybe. Personally, I always feel like taking him over my knee and wearing out a shingle on him! Well, this won’t get our things unpacked. Let’s knock off after a bit and see who’s back. Funny none of the gang has been in. Wonder if Fan’s back. And Ted Halliday.”

“I saw Fanning at supper,” said Toby.

“We’ll run over to Dudley after awhile and look him up. You like him, don’t you, Toby?”

“Fanning? Yes, but I don’t really know him as well as some of the other fellows. He’s football captain this year, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Arnold nodded and then frowned. “Sometimes I wish we’d elected some one else: Ted, maybe, or Jim Rose.”

“Why? I thought you liked Fanning a lot. And he was the whole thing last year in the Broadwood game, wasn’t he?”

“I do like him. He’s a mighty fine chap. And he’s a whale of a player. Only, what sort of a captain will he make? He’s too easy, to my way of thinking. He’s likely to fall for a lot of fellows who can’t play much just because they’re friends of his. I don’t mean that he will intentionally show favoritism, but he’s too plaguy loyal to his friends, Toby. To tell the truth, I’m half inclined to stay out of it this fall—No, that isn’t so, either. What I do mean is that I’m scared that Fan may keep me on even if I don’t really make good. And I’d hate that worse than poison. I want to make the team, but I don’t want fellows to wink and laugh and look wise about me. You know the sort of stuff: ‘Oh, Deering, ye-es, he’s all right. But it’s lucky for him Fanning’s a friend of his!’ That sort of guff. Of course, this new coach, Lyle, may be a chap with a mind of his own and not stand for any of the friend-of-my-youth stuff. I hope so. I’d feel better anyway. By the way, you haven’t changed your mind, Toby?”

“About football? No.”

“I wish you would. Why don’t you?”

“Lots of reasons,” answered Toby smilingly. “In the first place, I tried it last fall. In the sec——”

“You call that trying? You just went out with a whole mob of fellows and loafed around until they got tired of walking on you. Besides, you were out for the Second. The First’s a different proposition, son, especially now that you’ve made good in hockey. Every one knows that you’ll be hockey captain next year.”

“It’s more than I know,” said Toby good-naturedly. “Anyhow——”

“And you’re at least fifteen pounds heavier than a year ago. They said you were too light, didn’t they?”

“They meant in the head,” replied the other gravely.

“They were dead right, too! But, honest, old thing, joking aside——”

“Arn, I haven’t got time for football and I can’t afford it.”

“That’s what you said about hockey last winter. And you were so pressed for time that you copped a Ripley Scholarship! As for ‘affording’ it, where’s the expense come in?”

“Togs and things,” answered Toby. “And traveling expenses. Arn, if I went in for football and made the team—which I couldn’t do in a million years—I’d have to go back to sponging coats and pressing trousers, and that would make the room awfully smelly, and you wouldn’t like it a bit.” And Toby ended with a laugh.

“Piffle! All right, have your own stubborn way. You’ll miss a whole lot of fun, though.”

“And a whole lot of bruises! Anyway, Arn, one football hero is enough in a family. I’ll stay at home and cut surgeon’s plaster for you and keep your crutches handy and hear your alibis.”

“Idiot,” said Arnold. “Come on, dump that truck on the chair and let’s go over to Dudley. I want to hear some sensible conversation for a change.”

“You don’t mean you’re going to keep quiet all evening, do you?” asked Toby with concern.

CHAPTER III
SID OFFERS ADVICE

The school year began the next morning. Many new faces confronted Toby in the recitation rooms and some familiar ones were missing. Toby’s list of friends had not been a long one last year, although acquaintances had been many. It had been his first year at Yardley Hall, which fact, coupled with a fairly retiring disposition, had left him rather on the outside. It is always a handicap to enter school in a class below your friends, which is what Toby had done. Arnold and Frank, both a year older, had been in the Third, while Toby had gone into the Fourth. Consequently the fellows he had met through Arnold—Frank had not counted greatly as a friend last year—had few interests that were Toby’s. To be sure, in early spring, after he had made a success of hockey, things had been somewhat different. But even then he had remained a pretty insignificant person among the three hundred and odd that made up the student body of Yardley Hall School. Not that Toby cared or thought much about it. He was too busy getting through the year without calling on his father for further financial assistance to pay much attention to the gentle art of acquiring friends.

One friend, however, Toby had had, whether or no. That was Tommy Lingard, a Preparatory Class youngster, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, shy and, in appearance, the soul of innocence. That he wasn’t as spotless as he looked has nothing to do with this story. Toby had saved Tommy from drowning, and thereafter the younger boy had attached himself to his benefactor like a shadow. It had been very embarrassing at times, for saving a person’s life does not necessarily imply that you want to spend the rest of your life in that person’s company! Toby didn’t like Tommy, for which there was a reason, but he couldn’t be brutal to him, and short of being brutal there had seemed no way of evading Tommy’s doglike devotion and his unwelcome companionship. It had become a joke to Arnold and a few others, but Toby found it far from that. When June had brought the end of the school year Toby couldn’t have told you whether he was more delighted at finishing an Honor Man in his class or at getting rid of Tommy Lingard!

He had returned this fall with a grim determination to be rid of the boy at any cost short of murder, but to-day, glancing uneasily about as he passed from one recitation to another, he was not so sure of himself. Probably, he reflected discouragedly, when Tommy appeared and got those big blue eyes on him he wouldn’t find it in his heart to be unkind to the youngster, and the whole wretched, tiresome program would begin all over again. Therefore when, hurrying from his last morning recitation at twelve, he almost bumped into Tommy on the steps of Oxford, he was at once amazed and relieved when that youth said, “Hello, Toby,” in a most embarrassed voice and sidled past. At the foot of the steps Toby stopped and looked back. Could that be Tommy? Of course it was, but it was a very different Tommy. He had shot up during the summer like a weed. His clothes looked too small for him, too short of leg and sleeve. He was thinner of body and face, the pink-and-white complexion had muddied, the blue eyes were no longer luminous with truth and innocence and the voice had dropped several notes to a ridiculous bass! In short, Tommy had changed very suddenly from a blue-eyed cherub to a commonplace and awkward boy. And Toby was very, very glad, so glad that he went the rest of the way to Whitson whistling at the top of his voice; or should I say at the top of his whistle?

“Just shows,” he reflected as he skipped up the stairs, “that it doesn’t pay to worry about anything that may happen, because maybe it won’t!”

After a two o’clock séance with “Old Tige,” by which name Mr. Gaddis, English instructor, was popularly known, Toby went with Arnold down to the athletic field. September had still a week to run and the afternoon was almost uncomfortably hot. Across the river, the wide expanse of salt marsh was still green in places, and overhead the sky was unflecked by clouds. Fortunately a little westerly breeze mitigated the heat. Most of the tennis courts were occupied, a group of baseball enthusiasts were congregated over by the batting net and on the blue surface of the curving stream a few bright-hued canoes were moving slowly upstream or down. Toby found himself almost wishing that he had chosen a dip in the Sound instead of an hour or more of unexciting observation of some fourscore overheated youths going through football practice. However, the new grandstand, finished during the summer, was roofed, and as soon as Arnold left him to his own devices Toby meant to climb up there into the shade and sprawl in comfort. On the way they passed new boys here and there—it was easy to detect them if only by their too evident desire to seem quite at home—and they agreed gravely, pessimistically that they were a rum looking lot, and wondered what the school was coming to! Old friends and acquaintances hailed them from a distance or stopped to chat. Arnold was rather a popular fellow and knew a bewildering multitude of his schoolmates.

“Seems mighty nice to be back again,” Arnold observed after one such meeting. “Bet you we’re going to have a dandy time this year, T. Tucker.”

“Maybe you will,” answered the other dubiously, “but I don’t expect to unless they drop Latin from the curriclumum—curric—well, whatever you call it.”

“Call it the course, old thing,” laughed Arnold. “It’s easier on the tongue. But I thought you finished strong with Latin last year.”

“I did pretty well in spring term, but it looks tougher this fall. And I’ve got Collins this year, and every one says he’s a heap stricter than Townsend.”

“Well, he is, I suppose, but he’s a mighty good teacher. You get ahead faster with Collins, I think. Anyway, it won’t look so bad when you’ve got into it, Toby. Besides, I dare say I can help you a bit now and then.”

“You,” jeered Toby with a very, very hollow laugh. “You’ll be so full of football for the next two months you won’t know I’m alive! A nice outlook for me, I don’t think! When I’m not bathing you with arsenic—or is it arnica?—or strapping your broken fragments together I’ll have to listen to you yapping about how it was you missed a tackle, or got your signals mixed. Arn, as a companion you’ll be just about as much use as a—a——”

“Don’t overtax that giant intellect of yours, old thing. It’s too hot. Wonder where the crowd is. You don’t suppose those fellows are all that are going to report?”

“It’s not three yet. Probably the rest of them preferred to stay sensibly in the shade while they had the chance. Wish I had! Arn, is that what’s-his-name over there?”

“No, that’s thingumbob. Whom do you mean?”

“The little man in the blue sweater-coat talking to Fanning. See him?”

“Yes. I guess it must be. Isn’t very big, is he? Fan said last night, though, that he talked a heap of sense. I’m going over. Come along and meet him.”

“No, thanks. I’ll wait here.”

Arnold left him by the corner of the old grandstand and made his way toward where the new coach was in conversation with Captain Fanning. Toby saw Fanning introduce Arnold to Mr. Lyle and saw the two shake hands. Then something broad and heavy smote him disconcertingly between his shoulders and he swung around to find Sid Creel’s grinning, moon-like countenance before him.

“Hello, Toby!” greeted Sid, reaching for his hand. “I had a beastly fright. Just when I was lamming you I thought maybe it wasn’t you after all. You’ve sort of thickened up since last year. Rather embarrassing to find you’ve whacked a total stranger on the back, eh? Much obliged to you for being you, Toby. I’ll never forget it. What sort of a summer did you have? You’re looking hard as nails and more beautiful than ever!”

“Same to you, Sid. Are you going out for football?” Toby glanced at the other’s togs.

“No,” replied Sid gravely. “I’m going to tea at the Doctor’s.”

“Well,” laughed Toby, “that was sort of a fool question, but I didn’t know you were a football shark.”

“I’m not; I’m just a minnow. I’m trying for the Second. I always do. I’ve been trying for the Second Team for years and years. If I’m not here they postpone until next day. I should think you’d go in for the game, Toby. Ever tried it?”

“A little. I was out for the Second last fall, but I didn’t stay long.”

“That so? I don’t remember seeing you.”

“Funny, Sid; there were only about eighty of us the first day!”

“Well, I didn’t know you then, Toby. Why don’t you try again? Didn’t you like it?”

“I don’t know. Guess I didn’t have time to find out whether I did or didn’t. They said I was too light and fired me after three or four days.”

“Well, you certainly have enough weight now. Come on and join the goats. It’s lots of fun. You get action, son, and it lets you out of gymnasium work while you’re at it. That’s something! Come on!”

Toby smiled and shook his head. “Guess not, thanks. I never would make a football player.”

“You? You’re just the kind, Toby. You’re quick and you’ve got a good head, and you’re built right, too. Wish I had your build. Only thing I’m good for is center or, maybe, guard. I’m too bulky. It isn’t all fat, though, believe thou me. Feel them here biceps, son, if you doubt my word.”

“I kind of envied you your fat—I mean your muscular bulk, Sid—last winter,” answered Toby. “You could fall flat on the ice without hurting yourself. You just kind of bounced up and down a few times and didn’t mind it. When I fell I felt it!”

“Never mind about me bouncing,” said Sid good-naturedly, with a grin. “I got around the ice a heap faster than some of the chaps at that. But about football, Toby——”

“I haven’t got time for it, Sid; that’s another thing. I’ve got to put my nose to the grindstone, I guess, this year.”

“Well, haven’t I? Rather! But football won’t cut in on studying—much. Anyway, a fellow studies better for being out-of-doors and getting plenty of exercise and——”

“Yes, but I can be outdoors without playing football, Sid.”

“Gee, you’re the original little Excuse-Me! Well so be it. After all, some one’s got to stay out of it and be audience, and from the looks of things right now, Toby, you’re the only fellow left to sit in the grandstand and cheer us on to victory. Look at the gang coming down! There’s a fellow I want to see. So long! Better change your mind, though!”

Arnold came back for a minute and then left in answer to the plaintive squawking of a horn from farther along the side of the field. Fully eighty youths of assorted ages and sizes gathered about the new coach and the hubbub was stilled as the small man in the blue knitted jacket began to speak. Toby could hear an occasional word, but not enough to make sense, and, since it was no concern of his, he turned toward the grandstand and climbed up into the grateful shade. Forty or fifty others had already scattered themselves about the seats in couples or groups, most of them munching peanuts or popcorn bars, ready to be amused if amusement required no exertion on their parts. A lazy way to spend a perfectly good afternoon, reflected Toby. He wished he hadn’t let Arnold persuade him to come, but, being here, he lacked energy for the hot uphill walk back to the dormitory. He would stay awhile, he told himself; at least until the afternoon had cooled a little.

There was a salvo of polite handclapping from the group within sound of the coach’s voice and it broke up. Andy Ryan, the trainer, emptied a canvas bag of trickling footballs and they were pounced on and borne away to various parts of the field. The big group became half a dozen smaller ones. It was only “kindergarten stuff” to-day, even for the veterans; passing and falling and starting; not very interesting from the viewpoint of candidate or audience. Toby located Arnold working with a squad under big Jim Rose. Arn was, as Toby knew, pretty soft after a fairly lazy summer, and the boy in the shade of the big stand smiled unfeelingly as he saw his chum straighten himself slowly in deference to protesting muscles.

“He will be good and sore to-night,” thought Toby. “Sailing a boat all summer doesn’t keep a football man in very good trim, I guess!”

After that he lost interest in the scene before him, and, his somewhat battered straw hat on one knee and the lazy breeze drying his damp hair, let his thoughts carry him back to Greenhaven and the folks in the little white cottage on Harbor Road. It would be very pleasant there to-day on the vine-shaded steps, with the harbor and the white sails before him and the cheery click-clock of the caulking iron and mallet and the busy pip-pup, pip-pup of the gasoline engine sounding across from the boat yard. Better still, though, would it be to lie in the stern of a boat, main-sheet in hand, and slip merrily out past the island to where, even to-day, the white-caps would be dancing on the sunlit surface of the bay. He was getting the least bit homesick when the sound of approaching steps brought his wandering thoughts back. Climbing the aisle was a somewhat thin, carelessly dressed youth. His head was bent and so Toby couldn’t see his face well, but there was something dimly familiar about the figure. Toby wondered why, with several hundred empty seats to choose from, the boy, whoever he was, had to come stamping up here. He sighed and changed his position and was relapsing into his thoughts again when he saw to his annoyance that the approaching youth had stopped at the end of his row, two seats distant. Toby’s gaze lifted curiously to the boy’s face. Perhaps it was more the two strips of rather soiled surgeon’s plaster adorning the chap’s upper lip than the features that led Toby to recognize him. Mentally, Toby groaned. Aloud, trying to make his voice sound decently friendly, he said: “Hello! Well, how’s it going?”

CHAPTER IV
G. W. TUBB

“Hello,” answered the other gruffly.

To Toby’s further annoyance he slid into the end seat, as he did so producing a folded but rather crumpled handkerchief from a pocket. This he held across to Toby.

“’Tain’t very clean,” he said, “but it’s the best I could do.”

“What is it?” asked Toby, accepting it doubtfully. “Oh, I see; my handkerchief. You needn’t have bothered. I told you to throw it away. Still, much obliged.” It had quite evidently been washed by the boy himself and ironed by the simple expedient of laying it while wet on some smooth surface, perhaps a windowpane. Faint brownish stains had defied the efforts of the amateur laundryman. Toby dropped it into a pocket, aware of the close and apparently hostile stare of the other. “Much obliged,” he repeated vaguely, for want of anything better to say.

“’At’s all right,” answered the other. “Too good a handkerchief to throw away.” An awkward silence followed. Toby wished the youth would take himself off, but that idea was apparently far from the latter’s mind. Instead, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, stretched his thin legs before him and scowled down at the busy scene. He looked to be about fifteen, Toby thought. His features were not bad in themselves, but his expression was sullen and dissatisfied and his complexion was too much the color of putty to be pleasant to look at. Also, his skin didn’t seem clean and healthy. The same was true of the youth as a whole. Toby thought a thorough application of hot water and soap would improve him a whole lot, at least externally. His clothes were of good enough material and fairly new. But they were full of creases and needed brushing. His shoes were scratched at the toes and would have been better for dressing and polishing. His collar was cleaner than yesterday, but creased and rumpled, and the blue four-in-hand scarf needed tightening. On the whole, this chap was not a prepossessing member of Yardley Hall society, and Toby had no desire to increase the acquaintance. But so long as he was here some sort of conversation seemed in order, and so, breaking the silence:

“How’s the cut getting on?” Toby asked.

“All right,” the other answered without turning his head. Then: “Say,” he challenged.

“Yes?”

“Your name’s Tucker, ain’t it?”

“Yes. What’s yours, by the way?” Toby was sorry he had asked as soon as the question was out.

“Tubb,” was the answer, “George Tubb.” There was a pause. Then, defiantly: “Middle name’s William. Go on and say it!”

“Say it? Why, George William Tubb,” responded Toby obligingly.

The other turned and viewed him suspiciously. Then he grunted. “Guess you don’t get it,” he muttered. “George W. Tubb, see?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” answered Toby indifferently.

“You would if you saw it written,” said Mr. Tubb gloomily. “Everybody does.” He pitched his voice to a falsetto. “‘What’s the W. stand for? Wash?’ Gee, I’m sick of it. I tried to tell the guy in the office where you get registered that my middle name was Harris, but he said it couldn’t be that and begin with W. It’ll be W. in the catalogue, so you might as well know it now. Well, I’ve been ‘Wash-tub’ ever since I was a foot high, so I guess it don’t matter here!”

“What’s the difference?” asked Toby. “One nickname’s as good as another, isn’t it? Names don’t matter.”

“Some don’t. I suppose they call you ‘Red’ or ‘Carrot’ or something like that. I wouldn’t mind——”

“Hold on, Tubb!” Toby’s voice dropped a note. “No one calls me what you said. Some fellows have tried to, but they changed their minds. Understand?”

Tubb grinned. “Don’t like it, eh? Thought you said names didn’t matter! Well, I don’t like my nickname any more than you like yours; I mean what fellows started to call you.” The grin faded and Tubb’s countenance became overcast again with the settled expression of sullenness. “Anyway, what they call me here doesn’t cut any ice. I won’t be here long.”

“How’s that?” asked Toby, trying to make his question sound politely interested.

“I’m going to beat it. This ain’t any kind of a school for me, Tucker. Gee, what would I do here? Look at the gang of highbrows and mamma’s darlings! They’d stand for me about two days. I know the sort. Some of ’em come to our town in summer. Think they ever have anything to do with us town guys? Not on your life! We’re too common for ’em, the dear little Willie Boys!”

“Why did you come here then?” asked Toby coldly.

“It was Pop’s idea,” replied Tubb. “Aunt Sarah died last spring out in Michigan and she left Pop some money. The will said some of it was to go for my schooling. I wanted to go to Huckins’s, in Logansport. Know it? It’s an all-right school and two or three fellows from my town go there. It don’t cost much, either. But Pop was set on this dive. About ten years ago Pop was in partnership with a man named Mullins in the logging business, and this Mullins had a boy who went to school here. Pop thought a lot of the Mullinses, and when he learned about Aunt Sarah’s will he said right off I was to go here. He got the high school principal to coach me all summer. I kept telling him I wouldn’t like it here, kept telling him it wasn’t any place for a storekeeper’s son, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he’d lick the hide off me if I didn’t pass the examinations, and I knew he would. So I passed. He’ll lick me if I go back home, too, so I’ve got to go and get me a job somewhere. Guess I’ll enlist in the Navy. I’ll tell ’em I’m seventeen. They don’t care. I know a fellow got in when he was a couple of months younger than I am.”

Toby viewed Tubb distastefully during a brief silence. Then: “Seems to me,” he said slowly and emphatically, “the Navy is just the place for you, Tubb!”

“Sure,” began the other. Then something in Toby’s tone made him pause and view the other suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“Just what I said. What you need is discipline, Tubb, and a whole lot of it, and you’ll get it in the Navy. And I wish them joy of you!” Toby arose and crowded past to the aisle.

“Ah, go to thunder!” snarled Tubb. “You’re like all the rest of them, ain’t you? Silk-sox! Who cares what you think? Say, I hope you ain’t caught anything, sitting alongside me like that!”

There was more, but Toby didn’t hear it. Going down the aisle he was uncomfortably conscious of the curious looks bent on him by the occupants of the nearer seats who had been aroused from their sleepy occupation of following the practice by Tubb’s strident voice. He was glad when he had reached the ground and turned the corner of the stand. Passing between the busy tennis courts, he reflected that befriending strangers didn’t work out very satisfactorily for him. After this, he decided, smiling whimsically, fellows might drown or be cut to pieces for all the help he would offer!

Just before supper, when Arnold came back to Number 12, a trifle washed-out looking and not moving very spryly, Toby narrated the outcome of the incident in the train. By this time he was able to tell of the meeting with George W. Tubb with a touch of humor and Arnold listened amusedly, stretched at length on the window-seat.

“You’re right, Toby, the Navy’s just the place for friend Tubbs.”

“Tubb,” corrected Toby. “There’s only one of him, praise be!”

“We’re getting some strange freaks here of late, anyway,” reflected Arnold. “There were several on the field this afternoon. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world—or a football team! Say, T. Tucker, the new coach is a peach. Fan’s crazy about him, and so are the others. Did you hear the song-and-dance he gave us before practice? Some sane and sensible little speech, that was.”

“What did he say?” asked Toby.

“We-ell,” Arnold hesitated, “I don’t know that he said anything much different from what all coaches say at the start of the season. It was more the way he said it, I guess. Of course he insisted rather painfully on hard work, and told us what a fine, intelligent-looking lot we were.”

“Must be nearsighted,” murmured Toby.

“And said something nice about Fan. Oh, it was much the usual speech, only—well, it did sound different, somehow. One thing he did say, though, T. Tucker, may interest you.”

“You may proceed, Mr. Deering.”

“He said he wanted every fellow in school who had the possible making of a football player in him to report not later than Monday, and that if they didn’t volunteer he’d draft them! That ought to give you something to think about, old thing.”

“Meaning that I have somewhere concealed about me the making of a football player?” asked Toby.

“Exactly. You’d better keep out of Lyle’s way or he will grab you.”

After a moment Toby, who had armed himself with towel and soap-dish preparatory to a trip to the lavatory, moved to the door but paused with his hand on the knob. “He can’t draft me, Arn,” he said.

“Why can’t he, I’d like to know?”

“Because I’m going out for the Second to-morrow.”

“What! Honest? When—How——”

But Toby had closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER V
WITH THE SECOND

Of recent years the custom of having separate organizations for the First and Second Teams from the very outset of the season had obtained at Yardley. In the old days the Second was made up, perhaps a fortnight after the school year had started, of players who were not needed on the First and those who, for one reason or another, were ineligible for it. As a result, the Second as an adversary for the First, or School, Team, never amounted to much until the season was half gone. Under the new system the Second came into being two or three days after the start of the fall term, with a coaching staff, small but sufficient, of its own, a captain elected the preceding year and a general organization similar to that of the First save as to size. The coach was inevitably some enthusiastic and patriotic fellow who had recently graduated and who gave his services free. At times—whenever possible, in fact—he summoned other graduates to his assistance. If he was a wise coach, he never had more than one assistant at a time. If he was unwise, he had—and chaos reigned.

This year the coach was Mr. Burtis. Burtis had, in his time, been a remarkable half-back and an equally remarkable kicker, both in preparatory school and college. He had left college last spring and was, consequently, but twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. Because Yardley Hall history accorded him much fame as a player and leader, a great deal was expected of him. Toby’s first look at Kendall Burtis produced more surprise than anything else. He found himself wondering how any man could be as utterly homely as the coach and yet look as attractive, how any one could have so many angles in his body and yet be so free from awkwardness! Burtis was rather large, ruggedly built, square of frame. His mouth was broad, his nose somewhat pug, his hair nondescript in hue. Yet in spite of these things the face was pleasing and attractive. Perhaps the very dark gray eyes, clear and steady and honest, were accountable. Or it may be that the mouth expressed kindliness. At all events, after that first instant of surprise and confusion, Toby liked the new coach immensely. Whether the new coach liked Toby I can’t say. It is quite probable that he didn’t see him, for Toby was only one of some forty-eight fellows drawn up in a group on the edge of the second diamond that Saturday afternoon.

Toby wondered what words of wisdom would fall from that generously-proportioned mouth, and he craned his head over Sid Creel’s shoulder that he might hear them all. What he did hear and see were hardly worth the exertion. Coach Burtis, a new football snuggled in his left elbow and his right hand thrust into a pocket of an old pair of gray trousers, looked pleasantly over the little throng for a moment. Then: “Well,” he said genially. “It looks like we had material for a good team here. Let’s get busy!”

That was all. Toby felt a trifle neglected and disappointed. But he had to acknowledge that perhaps getting busy was as important as listening to a speech. After that, for more than an hour and a half, he had very little opportunity for feeling neglected. There were moments when he wished he might. Coach and captain were both believers in hard work, and both buckled down resolutely to the task ahead of them. More than half the material was inexperienced, much of what remained was useless, and only some twelve or fourteen candidates combined experience with ability. To-day’s work was the veriest drudgery, and, although occasional halts were called, yet the September sun did unkind things to many. Toby, rather to his surprise, discovered that he was not nearly so hard and fit as he had thought. After ten minutes of passing and falling, he perspired from every pore, and ere the afternoon’s practice was finished, he felt very much like a wet rag. Also, he had somehow managed to develop a painful crick in his left shoulder, close to his neck. And the muscles in the backs of his legs felt as if some one had pounded them with a board. On the whole, he was far less enthusiastic than he had been at three o’clock, and even the shower failed of much reaction. Dragging a tired body from the gymnasium across the yard to Whitson, he wondered by just what mental process he had the day before arrived at the decision to play football!

As a matter of fact, there had been, so far as he could recall, no mental process at all. Arnold had threatened him with the First Team draft and almost without reflection he had announced that he was going out for the Second! Ten minutes before, or even three, he had had no more idea of a football career than he had had of jumping from the window. Well, reflected Toby ruefully, it just showed that you couldn’t be too careful of impulses!

He supposed that Sid Creel was mainly responsible for these aching muscles. He had resolutely refused to be persuaded by Sid’s arguments, and yet, apparently, he had been! Or else he had done it just to surprise Arnold. Maybe that was it. If it was, it was a mighty poor reason! Any amount of surprise on the part of Arnold wasn’t worth the soreness of those leg muscles! He groaned as he started up the stairs, but nearing the door of Number 12, he assumed a carefree and nonchalant air designed to deceive Arnold in case that youth was within.

He wasn’t, though, and Toby was thankful. It gave him a chance to lie down on the window seat, groaning as much as he pleased while doing it, without arousing curiosity. He dropped his cap—he had put by the straw hat—on the nearest object and divested himself of an unnecessary coat. It was while he was getting rid of the latter article of apparel that his eyes fell on an envelope propped against the base of the droplight on his side of the table. It bore his name in funny up-and-down characters, like the writing of a boy of ten, and the postmark showed that it was mailed in Wissining that morning. Of course, it might be only an invitation to deal at one of the few local stores, but there was evidence against that premise; such as the lack of any address in the corner, the queer writing and a brownish smudge along the flap suggesting that unclean hands had sealed the envelope. He bore it to the window seat, settled himself cautiously against the pile of cushions, stretched his aching legs out and tore open the letter. A single sheet of blue-ruled paper emerged. Toby read it frowningly.

Dear Tucker: I’m sorry for what I said this afternoon. I didn’t mean it because you are the only fellow at this place who has been decent towards me since I came here. I got mad and I wish I hadn’t and I’m sorry. I wish you’d forgive me, please, Tucker. I guess what you said was true about the Navy, I mean, and maybe I’ll do like I said. Every one here shows plain that I am not wanted at this school and I guess the sooner I beat it the better. If more fellows were like you maybe I could stick it out. I am not afraid of the studies. It is not that, but the fellows here are not my kind I suppose. You are not either, but you acted like you did not think much about that. I am just writing this because you were decent to me in the train that day, more than any other fellow has been, and I do not want you to think I am no good at all, with no gratitude. If I do not see you again, good-by and good luck, from Yours Truly, Geo. W. Tubb.

Toward the end of the queer epistle Toby’s frown disappeared, and when he had read it once he read it again. After that he laid it down and looked out over the woods below the railroad cut, at the foot of the Prospect, and so to the blue expanse of Long Island Sound. A sail boat dipped slowly along the shore and afar out a cocky tug was leading a draggled parade of three coal barges. Presently the frown crept back again, and he lifted the letter, folded it and put it back in its envelope.

“Suppose I ought to answer it,” he thought, “only, what can I say? Tell him I don’t mind what he said, I suppose, although it happens that I do mind. At least, I ought to. He’s a very objectionable, soggy-minded, unclean fellow, and I don’t want any more to do with him. Still, that doesn’t say that he isn’t having a horribly messy time here. Of course fellows don’t take to him. He looks dirty and bad-tempered and he talks worse than he looks. He doesn’t belong here. Seems to realize it, too. Shows he has some sense, doesn’t it? Well, I didn’t say he didn’t have sense. Trouble with him is he’s been left to do as he likes too much, I guess. Bet you I know that father of his. Severe as anything when things go wrong, and the rest of the time doesn’t pay any attention to the kid. He didn’t say anything about a mother or brothers or sisters. Probably there’s just the two of them in one of those mean little towns where nothing ever happens that’s worth while. Bet you there isn’t even a movie theater there! Dad puts out the lamp at nine o’clock and goes to bed and the kid has to go, too, and the only way he can have any excitement is to sneak down the rain-spout and get into mischief! Oh, well, it’s no affair of mine. Still, I am sort of sorry for Tubb. ‘Washtub.’ Beastly nickname! Wonder who his adviser is. Probably hasn’t been near him, and would only growl and be ugly if he went. Best thing can happen to George W. Tubb is to seek pastures new.”

Toby yawned and closed his eyes. The faint breath of cool evening air that blew in through the open window beside him made him feel very sleepy. He would write a couple of lines to Tibb—no, Tubb—after supper. Tell him it’s all right, and——

Toby fell asleep.

Ten minutes later he dreamed that he was falling down innumerable flights of stairs, bounding from one to another with ever increasing momentum. He didn’t seem concerned about the process of falling, but he knew that when he reached the bottom, if he ever did, there would be an awful smash! In case there shouldn’t be enough left of him to groan then, maybe he had better do it now. So he did, quite frightfully. And opened his eyes to find Arnold and Frank tugging at him and laughing.

“Wake up, Toby! It isn’t true!”

“N-no,” agreed Toby doubtfully. “But—I’m glad you stopped me before I got to the bottom!”

“Nightmare?” asked Frank. “I have it sometimes. Get a move on. We’re going to get supper early and beat it over to Greenburg for the first house at the movies.”

“I don’t see any use in my spending good money to see movies,” demurred Toby, sitting up sleepily, “when all I’ve got to do is go to sleep and have movies of my own!”

Arnold grinned. “How did practice go?” he asked significantly.

“Fine.” Toby was quite cheerful and nonchalant. “Made me sleepy, though, I guess.”

“Hope you’re not tired or lame or anything like that? You had such a lot of fun ragging me yesterday, you know. Too bad if you—er——”

“Me? Oh, well, it was pretty warm, of course, but when you’re in good hard condition——”

“What’s the matter?” asked Arnold, grinning.

“Matter? Why?”

“I thought you made a face when you stood up. My mistake, of course!”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” declared Toby with great dignity. “If you think that a little football practice—ouch! Gee!” He sat down again on the window seat and rubbed his back ruefully, while the others laughed with wicked glee.

“It won’t do, old thing! There’s no use stalling. You’re as bad as I was yesterday, when you had the beautiful cheek to sit there and read me a lecture on not keeping fit! Where does it hurt worst?”

“All over,” groaned Toby. “I’ll be all right after I move around a while, though. That’s one advantage of being in fine physical condition: you may get a bit lame but you get right over it!”

“Isn’t he the wonderful bluffer?” asked Arnold admiringly to Frank. “Well, go ahead and move around, old thing. It’s five minutes of, and we want to get over there before seven.”

“Tell me one thing first,” begged Toby, squirming about from his waist up. “Do they have cushions on the seats at the movie house?”

“Oh, yes, and they’ll give you a couple of pillows at the ticket office if you ask for ’em,” answered Frank. “Hustle now!”

“What you tell me sounds perfectly beautiful,” said Toby sadly, “but I’m afraid it isn’t true.”

Thereupon Arnold thrust towel and soap into his hands, Frank held the door open and between them they pushed him, groaning and remonstrating, into the corridor and headed him toward the lavatory.

“It’s really an awful joke on him,” chuckled Arnold as Toby’s lagging footsteps receded down the hall. “He thought he was as hard as nails, and had a fine time crowing over me yesterday. Said it took more than sailing a boat to keep a fellow in shape!”

“I guess the only way to keep fit enough for football,” said Frank, feelingly, “is to chop trees all summer. I was just about all in last night. How did you manage to persuade him to take up football, anyway, Arn? I thought he was dead set against it.”

“So did I. I didn’t persuade him. I don’t know who did—or what! He sprung it on me suddenly yesterday. I’m glad, though. I think there’s a good football player in Toby, Frank.”

CHAPTER VI
SIGNALS

Although Toby was back in Whitson before nine that evening, it is needless to say that the note he had promised himself to write to George Tubb did not get written. In fact Toby forgot all about it until the next morning, when Arnold found Tubb’s letter on the floor and asked Toby if it was anything he wanted to keep.

“No, throw it in the basket,” answered Toby. “Hold on, though! Guess I’ll keep it. I’ve got to answer it to-day. Stick it on the table, Arn.”