Right Tackle Todd
CHAPTER I
“DIFFERENT”
“Stereotyped,” said Martin Gray. “That’s the word!” He spoke triumphantly, as one will when a moment’s search for the proper term has been rewarded. “Stereotyped, Clem!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied his room-mate, only mildly interested in Mart’s subject. “Of course they do look pretty much alike – ”
“It isn’t only their looks, though. But, come to think of it, that’s another proof of my – er – contention. Hang it, Clem, if they weren’t all alike as so many – er – beans – ”
“Don’t you mean peas?” asked Clement Harland, grinning.
“Beans,” continued Mart emphatically. “They wouldn’t all wear the same things, would they?”
“Don’t see that, Mart. After all, a chap’s simply got to follow the jolly old style, eh?”
“Not if he has any – er – individuality! No, sir! I saw fifty at least of the new class arrive yesterday, and except that sometimes one was shorter or taller or fatter than the others, you could have sworn they were all from the same town. Yes, sir, and the same street! Same clothes, same hats, same shoes, same – ”
“Well, after all, why not? Besides, after they’ve been here awhile they develop different – as you’d say – ‘er – characteristics.’ What if the kids do look alike when they first come?”
“But you don’t get the – er – the idea at all!” protested Martin. “What I’m trying to get at – ”
“Is that Alton Academy attracts a certain type of fellow and doesn’t get enough freaks to suit you.”
“Freaks be blowed! I don’t want freaks, I want new blood, something different now and then. You know as well as I do that new blood is what – ”
“You’ve got the ‘melting pot’ idea, eh?”
“Yes, I guess so. Why not? Look at the other schools; some of ’em, anyway: Dexter, Dover – ”
“Croton?”
“I said some of ’em. Take Dexter now.”
“I refuse.”
“Look at the – er – variety of fellows that go there. What’s the result?”
“Why, the result is that they manage to beat Dover pretty often at football, but I always thought that coach of theirs had a good deal to do with that!”
“Shucks, I’m not talking about athletics, although that’s a pretty good test, too. What I mean is that it’s the school that draws its enrollment from all over the country and from all – er – classes that does the biggest things; and that’s the most use, too.”
“I don’t believe it,” answered Mart. “It’s the school itself, its policy, its traditions that count. You might have every state in the Union – ”
“Oh, that, of course, but I say that a student body composed of a lot of totally different types – ”
“All right, but how are you going to get them?”
“Reach out for ’em! How do other schools get ’em?”
“Search me, old son! Maybe they advertise in the papers; Dakotas, New Mexico, Florida, Hawaii – ”
“Sure! Why not! This school’s in danger of – er – dry-rot, Clem! Four hundred or so fellows all alike, speaking the same language – ”
“I should hope so!”
“Thinking the same thoughts, having the same views on every subject. Gosh, can’t you see that you and I don’t get as much out of it as if we could rub up against something different now and then? Wouldn’t it be refreshing to find a fellow who didn’t think just as we think about everything, who didn’t wear exactly the same kind of clothes, who didn’t think the sun rose and set in New England?”
“But the sun does rise and set in New England,” objected Clem. “I’ve seen it.”
“Oh, shut up! You know what I mean. Wouldn’t it?”
Clem considered a moment. Then he shook his head doubtfully. “You should have gone to Kenly Hall, Mart,” he answered. “They have all kinds there, the whole fifty-seven varieties.”
“Yes, and they’re better off for it. Of course it’s the proper thing for us to make fun of Kenly, but you know mighty well that it’s every bit as good a school as Alton; maybe better in some ways. But Kenly isn’t much different from us. They get about the same lot year after year, just as we do. One year’s freshman class looks just like last year’s. Maybe they do get an occasional outsider. Quite a few middle-west chaps go there. But mostly they draw them from right around this part of the country, as we do. Gee, I’d certainly like to see, just for once, a fellow turn up here who didn’t look as if he’d been cast in the same mold with all the others!”
“You’re getting all worked up about nothing, old son,” said Clem soothingly. “You mustn’t do it. It always upsets you so you can’t eat your meals, and it’s only half an hour to supper.”
“If you weren’t so blamed stubborn – ”
“Shut up a minute! Hello! Come in!”
The door of Number 15 opened slowly until the more dimly lighted corridor was revealed through a narrow aperture and a voice said: “Excuse me, please, but is this where the fellow that hires the football players lives?”
From where Martin sat the owner of the voice was hidden, and so he could not account for the radiant grin that enveloped his room-mate’s countenance for an instant.
“I didn’t get it,” said Clem, politely apologetic. “Won’t you come in?” His face was sober again, unnaturally sober in the judgment of Martin Gray.
“Well,” said the unseen speaker doubtfully. Then the door again began its cautious passage across the old brown carpet, and Mart understood Clem’s grin.
The youth who now stood revealed to Mart’s astounded gaze was little short of six feet tall, it seemed. In age he might have been anywhere from sixteen to twenty, with eighteen as a likely compromise. He was attired neatly but, it appeared, uncomfortably in a suit of dark gray which fitted him too loosely across the shoulders and too abruptly at the ankles, its deficiency at the latter point exposing to Mart’s fascinated eyes a pair of wrinkled woolen socks of sky-blue. The low shoes were not extraordinary, but there was something deliciously quaint about the collar, with its widely parted corners, and the pale blue satin tie that failed to hide the brass collar-stud. Even the hat, a black Alpine shape, struck a note of originality, possibly because it was a full size too small and was poised so precariously atop a thickish mass of tumbled hair that seemed not yet to have decided just what shade of brown to assume. Clem coughed delicately and asked: “You were looking for some one?”
“Guess I’ve got the wrong place,” said the stranger, his first embarrassment increasing at the discovery of Mart beyond the door’s edge. “The fellow I’m looking for is the one who hires – well, takes on the football players. Guess he’s the manager, ain’t he?”
“Possibly,” answered Clem, turning to Mart with an inquiring glance. “What do you think?”
Martin took his cue promptly. “Or, maybe the coach,” he suggested. “You don’t know his name?”
The stranger shook his head. He held firmly to the outer knob of the door, resting his shoulders against the edge of it as he frowned in an effort of memory. “I heard it,” he replied, “but I forget what it was. He said I was to see him between five and six about me getting on the football team and I thought he said he lived in Number 15 in Lykes Hall, but – ”
“Well, you see, this isn’t – ”
But Clem interrupted Mart swiftly. “Sit down, won’t you?” he asked, smiling hospitably. “I dare say we can thresh out the mystery. And you might shove that door too, if you don’t mind. Thanks.”
The stranger closed the door as slowly as he had opened it, removed his hat and advanced gingerly to the chair that Clem’s foot had deftly thrust toward him. He gave them the impression of having