“They’re just as good as you can get anywhere,” protested Billy indignantly. “Baseball gloves aren’t made as well as they used to be, since the War, and if you got a bum one you ought to have brought it back, Hassell, and – ”
“There wasn’t enough of it to bring back,” said Stanley grimly, “after the third time I put it on! And I’m blamed if I see what the War’s got to do with baseball gloves. The trouble with you folks is that you got stocked up about twenty years ago and the moths have got busy!”
The rest, with the notable exception of Billy Crocker, were laughing and chuckling at Stanley’s tirade. Billy was flushed and sulky. “We can’t help it,” he muttered, “if the sewing on a glove gives way sometimes. That’s the way they come to us, and we buy the best we can find – ”
“Listen,” said Stanley impressively. “The sewing was the only part of that glove that held together! It was the leather that was rotten, and if I – ”
“Have you still got it?” demanded Billy, goaded to desperation. “If you have, bring it to the store and I’ll see that you get another.”
“Of course I haven’t got it,” answered Stanley disgustedly. “I bought it last spring, and the last I saw of it, it was hanging over the wire netting back of the home bench, where I pitched the blamed thing!”
“Well, the next time, you bring it back,” said Billy. “We don’t want any one dissatisfied.”
“There ain’t going to be no next time,” answered Stanley significantly. He subsided on the pillows again. “No hard feelings, Crocker,” he added apologetically, “but your store certainly does carry a bum lot of athletic goods.”
There was more laughter, and Billy decided to join in, which he did with what grace he might, and the troublesome subject lapsed.
Crocker left some twenty minutes later with Cal Grainger, although the latter showed no overmastering desire for his company, and when the door was closed Stanley asked: “What do you see in that fellow, Mac?”
“How do you mean?” asked Harley. “He isn’t my pal. He comes to see Ned.”
“What?” demanded his room-mate. “Gosh, I never asked him here! I thought maybe you had. I’m not keen for him, let me tell you. I’ve hardly spoken a hundred words to him, and then only on the field, and did you hear him calling me Ned? Cheeky bounder! I was tickled to death when you pitched into him about your old glove, Stan. He was as sore as a poisoned pup!”
“Old glove!” exclaimed Stanley, in arms again. “It was a new glove, gosh ding it! And I wore it just three times and – ”
“Oh, sweet odors of Araby!” groaned Jimmy. “You’ve gone and got him started again! Listen, you fellows! I have to hear the history of that glove ten times a day, and it does seem that when I get out in society, as ’twere, I might – might – ”
“Glove?” broke in Harley gravely. “What glove is that? Did you have a glove, Stan?”
“Oh, dry up,” muttered Stanley. “I’m going home. But I’ll tell you chumps one thing,” he went on with returned animation. “Those fellows who have the new store are going to get my trade!”
“Ha! Their success is assured!” cried Jimmy. “Stan buys a fielder’s glove every spring, and all they’ve got to do is hold until maybe April or May – ”
“Any one been in there yet?” asked Harley.
No one had, it appeared. “I haven’t even seen the place,” said Ned. “I hear they’ve got a real jazzy sign, though; a football, you know, hanging on a whatyoucallit.”
“Sounds mighty effective,” mused Jimmy. “Just what is a whatyoucallit?”
“Oh, a – one of those things that stick out – ”
“A sore thumb?”
“ – From a wall. A crane, isn’t it?”
“I think that’s a bird,” replied Jimmy, “but I know what you mean. A – a sort of – of iron projection – ”
“Brilliant conversation, I’ll say,” interrupted Stanley. “Come on, you dumb-bell. The best place for an intellect like yours is a pillow.” He propelled Jimmy, still struggling for expression, to the door. “So long, fellows! What he means is an arm.”
“But I don’t!” wailed Jimmy as the door closed. “I don’t!”
CHAPTER VII
JIMMY GOES SHOPPING
Jimmy was very conscientiously obeying Mart Proctor’s request to practice punting. As a senior who was not overburdening himself with extra courses, Jimmy had several periods of leisure between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon, and while these periods came at different hours on different days they never failed, and, as it happened, Tuesdays came very close to being full holidays for him. On those days his morning was blissfully free from the requirements of class attendance, and not until eleven-thirty did his schedule mean a thing to him. Usually there was some one on the field when Jimmy arrived who was quite willing to chase his punts and kick them back to him, and so he had already put in a good many hours of work outside the regular practice sessions. He had requisitioned a football from Jake and kept it in his room, since more often than not he went from dormitory to field without stopping at the gymnasium for a change of raiment. Casting aside his jacket, he was ready for the task, since he always affected knickerbockers. An old pair of football shoes, one having a tan lacing and the other a black, which ordinarily kicked about under his bed collecting dust, were donned before leaving the room. On Tuesdays, however, Jimmy dressed for the work and engaged the aid of some football aspirant whose hours of leisure matched his.
On this particular Tuesday, the day following the small events narrated in the preceding chapter, Jimmy, having picked up the football from where it had lodged under Stanley’s bed, viewed it with disapprobation. It was a very old ball, and a very scarred and battered one. As Jimmy mentally phrased it, it had whiskers all over it, by which he meant that what may be termed the epidermis of the ball was abraded and scruffy and adorned with little – for want of a better word – hang-nails of leather which in Jimmy’s opinion mitigated seriously against both distance and accuracy. Of course he couldn’t expect a brand-new ball, but it did seem as if Jake might have found one less feeble and senile than this! Why, the poor thing ought to have been retired on a pension years ago! Jimmy viewed it dubiously and at last distastefully, dropping it from one hand to the other. If he had a decent ball to work with —
Well, why not? If the management wouldn’t afford him one, why not buy one of his own? Why not indeed? Jimmy tossed the ancient pigskin from him, unmindful of direction or ultimate destination, pulled out the top drawer of his chiffonier and selected two bills from a number that reposed in a small box there. Then he looked at his watch. He had commandeered Neirsinger, a quarter-back candidate, for half-past nine. It was now twelve minutes after. In eighteen minutes he could get to West street, purchase a new football and – well, if not reach the field at least get within sight of it. So, stuffing the money in a pocket, he hurried forth and down the stairs and across the Green by an illegal but well-defined path that led straight to the center gate. Being like most of us a creature of habit, Jimmy’s subconscious mind was leading him to Crocker’s hardware store, and to Crocker’s hardware store he would have gone, so, doubtless, moving Stanley to reproaches, had his eyes not caught sight of an unaccustomed object when, having traveled the block between the Green and West street, he turned to his left on the latter thoroughfare.
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