“Sure! Why not?”
“How come?”
“Why, you dumb-bell, didn’t they whale us last year, 19 to 0?”
“That’s so, but – ”
“Well, we’ve put them down the list where we can handle them. Who’s next?”
“Oak Grove. Then Kenly. We have three games away from home.”
“All faculty will allow. Good thing, too, if you ask me.”
“I hadn’t, old dear, but I will. What’s the answer?”
“Takes too much money traveling around with the team.”
“Oh! Yes, there’s something in that. Here’s a bit about the baseball situation, but who cares about that? Let’s see, now – ”
“Read it,” commanded Stanley.
Jimmy looked across protestingly. “But it’s of absolutely no interest to any one except a few mistaken idiots who – ”
“Read it!”
“Oh, well!” Jimmy sighed. “‘Fall baseball practice, which started Monday, brought out an unusually large field of candidates. Six of last year’s creditable Team were on hand – ’” Jimmy paused and sniffed. “‘Creditable!’ How do they attain that condition? ‘On hand, and practically all of the Scrub Nine. Of new men the more promising at present are Dixon, who hails from Springfield High School, and Jameson, from Earl Academy. Captain Grainger announces that daily practice will be held as long as the weather permits, and asks all those who expect to take part in baseball next Spring to report at once.’ There, there wasn’t a single mention of your name, Stan. I knew there was no call to read the piffle.”
“We’ll have a corking team this year,” mused Stanley.
“Huh, you said that last year, and look what Kenly did to you!”
“That’s all right,” replied the other warmly. “We landed seventeen out of twenty-one games and tied one – the best record in – ”
“Son, you lost to Kenly, and that’s the unforgivable sin,” interrupted Jimmy didactically.
“Oh, well,” grumbled Stanley.
“Not, of course, that baseball is a sport to be taken seriously,” continued Jimmy lightly. “We can lose at soccer and tennis and baseball and still hold our heads up; which is extremely fortunate, too. Those minor sports – ” He broke off to dodge a cushion, and then looked at his watch. “Geewhillikins, Stan! It’s after six! Move your lazy bones and let’s eat!”
Whereupon all was bustle and action in Number 4 Lykes Hall.
CHAPTER V
RUSSELL EXPLAINS
Doubtless Doctor McPherson’s copy of The Doubleay was delivered to him absolutely on time, but the Doctor was always a busy man, and this was still very close to the beginning of the term, and so it was not until he was at ease in his very large and very old-fashioned green leather arm-chair that evening that he found time to scan the pages of the school weekly. This was a thing that he invariably did with much interest, for the paper echoed very clearly the pulse of the School. The Board of Editors and Managers were representative fellows and published their opinions – which were the opinions of their schoolmates – very frankly. In fact, as the Doctor recalled as he turned to the first page, there had been times when their frankness had been almost alarming; certainly embarrassing to him and the faculty! The Doctor was very thorough in all that he did, which probably accounts for the fact that, having perused and digested the news and editorial portions of the paper, he considered the advertisements, and with scarcely less interest. And, having reached one of them, he read it twice, frowning a little, and then, drawing a memorandum-pad toward him along the top of the big desk, he made three funny little characters on it, which, since the Doctor numbered a knowledge of short-hand among his other accomplishments, meant much more to him than it would have to you or me.
The direct result of those three lines and pot-hooks was the appearance the next forenoon of Russell Emerson in the school office and his prompt passage to the Principal’s private sanctum beyond. This room, which Russell had never before entered – and had never pined to! – was a large, high-ceilinged chamber with cream-white walls and woodwork and three massive windows toward the Green. It was saved from coldness and austerity by the huge mahogany bookcase along the farther wall, by a soft-piled green rug occupying most of the floor space, by a big mahogany desk in the center of the rug and by the presence along two walls of some half-dozen armchairs of the same warm-toned wood. Nevertheless, the first effect of that chamber on Russell was awesome, if not alarming. Although conscious of no lapse from the straight and narrow path, he nevertheless felt most uneasy as he closed the heavy door behind him, responded to the Principal’s smiling “Good morning, Emerson” and seated himself in the chair that stood beside the nearer end of the desk. Secretly curious, he sent a hurried look along the top of the shining mahogany, thinking that perhaps there would be somewhere in sight a clew to this unexpected summons. But the desk, save for some half-dozen books between handsome bronze book-ends in a distant corner, a large leather-bound writing pad under the Doctor’s elbow and a combined ink-well and pen-tray beyond it, was absolutely empty. Nor did the Doctor’s brown and rather sinewy hand hold anything that appeared like incriminating evidence. It held, in fact – I am referring to the hand that held anything – only a sharply-pointed yellow pencil which the Doctor, as he inquired politely as to Russell’s health and, subsequently, the health of Russell’s parents, slipped slowly back and forth between his fingers, alternating sharpened lead and rubber tip against one gray-trousered knee. Then he laid the pencil down on the blotting-pad, very exactly, so that it lay absolutely parallel to the rim of the pad, and came to the subject.
“I read in The Doubleay, Emerson, that you have opened a shop in the town – in West street, I believe – for the sale of athletic supplies.”
He paused, and Russell said, “Yes, sir.”
“Rather an unusual proceeding, Emerson,” pursued the Doctor. “Unusual, that is to say, at this school. It may have been done elsewhere. Would you mind telling me why you have embarked in this – ah – enterprise?”
“Why,” replied Russell a trifle blankly, “to make money.”
“I see. But do you really need money? That is, more money than, I presume, your parents allow you?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the boy emphatically. “My tuition is paid until the end of this term, sir, but if I’m to remain here for the rest of the year I’ll have to pony up – I mean I’ll have to pay for it myself.” Russell paused, frowned a little and looked speculatively at the Principal.