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OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL.

Honorary President, THE HON. WOODROW WILSON
Honorary Vice-President, HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT
Honorary Vice-President, COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT
President, COLIN H. LIVINGSTONE, Washington, D. C.
Vice-President, B. L. DULANEY, Bristol, Tenn.

Vice-President, MILTON A. McRAE, Detroit, Mich.
Vice-President, DAVID STARK JORDAN, Stanford University, Cal.
Vice-President, F. L. SEELY, Asheville, N. C.
Vice-President, A. STAMFORD WHITE, Chicago, Ill.
Chief Scout, ERNEST THOMPSON SETON, Greenwich, Connecticut
National Scout Commissioner, DANIEL CARTER BEARD, Flushing, N. Y.


NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

THE FIFTH AVENUE BUILDING, 200 FIFTH AVENUE
TELEPHONE GRAMERCY 546
NEW YORK CITY


FINANCE COMMITTEE
John Sherman Hoyt,
            Chairman
August Belmont
George D. Pratt
Mortimer L. Schiff
H. Rogers Winthrop


GEORGE D. PRATT,
         Treasurer
JAMES E. WEST,
         Chief Scout Executive


ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD

Ernest P. Bidwell
Robert Garrett
Lee F. Hanmer
John Sherman Hoyt
Charles C. Jackson

Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks
William D. Murray
Dr. Charles P. Neill
George D. Porter
Frank Presbrey

Edgar M. Robinson
Mortimer L. Schiff
Lorillard Spencer
Seth Sprague Terry

July 31st, 1913.

TO THE PUBLIC:—

In the execution of its purpose to give educational value and moral
worth to the recreational activities of the boyhood of America, the
leaders of the Boy Scout Movement quickly learned that to effectively
carry out its program, the boy must be influenced not only in his
out-of-door life but also in the diversions of his other leisure
moments. It is at such times that the boy is captured by the tales of
daring enterprises and adventurous good times. What now is needful is
not that his taste should be thwarted but trained. There should
constantly be presented to him the books the boy likes best, yet always
the books that will be best for the boy. As a matter of fact, however,
the boy’s taste is being constantly vitiated and exploited by the great
mass of cheap juvenile literature.

[Footer: “DO A GOOD TURN DAILY.” «over»]

To help anxiously concerned parents and educators to meet this grave
peril, the Library Commission of the Boy Scouts of America has been
organised. EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY is the result of their labors. All the
books chosen have been approved by them. The Commission is composed of
the following members: George F. Bowerman, Librarian, Public Library of
the District of Columbia, Washington, D. C.; Harrison W. Graver,
Librarian, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Claude G. Leland,
Superintendent, Bureau of Libraries, Board of Education, New York City;
Edward F. Stevens, Librarian, Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn,
New York; together with the Editorial Board of our Movement, William D.
Murray, George D. Pratt and Frank Presbrey, with Franklin K. Mathiews,
Chief Scout Librarian, as Secretary.

In selecting the books, the Commission has chosen only such as are of
interest to boys, the first twenty-five being either works of fiction or
stirring stories of adventurous experiences. In later lists, books of a
more serious sort will be included. It is hoped that as many as
twenty-five may be added to the Library each year.

Thanks are due the several publishers who have helped to inaugurate this
new department of our work. Without their co-operation in making
available for popular priced editions some of the best books ever
published for boys, the promotion of EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY would have been
impossible.

We wish, too, to express our heartiest gratitude to the Library
Commission, who, without compensation, have placed their vast experience
and immense resources at the service of our Movement.

The Commission invites suggestions as to future books to be included in
the Library. Librarians, teachers, parents, and all others interested in
welfare work for boys, can render a unique service by forwarding to
National Headquarters lists of such books as in their judgment would be
suitable for EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY.

Signed

[Signature: James E. West]

Chief Scout Executive.

[Illustration: LAWRENCE LAUNCHED HIMSELF AND HURLED THE RUNNER BACKWARD
(p. 194)]

EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY—BOY SCOUT EDITION

THE JESTER OF
ST. TIMOTHY’S

By
ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

AUTHOR OF
BOYS OF ST. TIMOTHY’S,
HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY’S. ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published September 1911_




CONTENTS


   I. Irving sets forth on his Adventure       1

  II. He achieves a Name for Himself          26

 III. Westby’s Amusements                     53

  IV. The Baiting of a Master                 75

   V. Master turns Pupil                      96

  VI. The Penalty for a Foul                 120

 VII. The Worm begins to turn                142

VIII. The Harvard Freshman                   166

  IX. Westby in the Game                     183

   X. Master and Boy                         205




ILLUSTRATIONS


Lawrence launched himself and hurled the
runner backward (p. 194)                        _Frontispiece_

The canoes swung about and made for Each Other             52

As to who had won, Irving had not the Slightest Idea      140

A Shadow crossed Westby’s Face                            220

_From drawings by B. L. Bates_




THE JESTER OF ST. TIMOTHY’S




CHAPTER I

IRVING SETS FORTH ON HIS ADVENTURE


In the post-office of Beasley’s general store Irving Upton was eagerly
sorting the mail. His eagerness at that task had not been abated by the
repeated, the daily disappointments which it had caused him. During the
whole summer month for which he had now been in attendance as Mr.
Beasley’s clerk, the arrival of the mail had constituted his chief
interest. And because that for which he had been hoping had failed to
come, his thin face had grown more worried, and the brooding look was
more constantly in his eyes.

This afternoon his hand paused; he looked at the superscription on an
envelope unbelievingly. The letter came from St. Timothy’s School and
was addressed to him. He finished distributing the other letters among
the boxes, for people were waiting outside the partition; then he opened
the envelope and read the type-written enclosure. A flush crept up over
his cheeks, over his forehead; when he raised his eyes, the brooding
look was no longer in them, but a quiet happiness instead, and his lips,
which had so long been troubled, were smoothed out in a faint, contented
smile. He read the letter a second time, then put it in his pocket, and
stepped round behind the counter to sell five cents’ worth of pink
gumdrops to little Abby Lawson.

When she had gone and the callers after mail had been satisfied, Irving
sat down at the table in the back of the store. He read the letter again
and mused over it for a few moments contentedly; then, with it lying
open before him, he proceeded to write an answer.

After finishing that, he drew from his pocket some papers—French
exercises, done in a scrawling, unformed hand.

It was the noon hour, when the people of the village were all eating
their dinners; Mr. Beasley had gone home, and Irving was undisturbed.
He helped himself to the crackers and dried beef which were his luncheon
perquisites, and with these at his elbow and nibbling them from time to
time he set about correcting his brother’s French.

He sighed in spite of the happiness which was pervading him; would
Lawrence always go on confusing some of the forms of _être_ and _avoir_?
Would he never learn to know the difference between _ils ont_ and _ils
sont_?

Irving made his corrections in a neat, pretty little hand, which of
itself seemed to reprove the student’s awkward scrawl. He turned then to
his own studies, which he was pursuing in a tattered volume of
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the English Common Law. He did not get on
very fast with this book, and sometimes he wondered what bearing it
could have on the practice of the law in Ohio at the present time. But
he had been advised to familiarize himself with the work in the interval
before he should enter a law school—an interval of such doubtful
length!

Mr. Beasley’s entrance caused him to look up.

“I shall be leaving you in less than a month now, Mr. Beasley,” he said.

“Got a job to teach, have you?” asked the storekeeper.

“Yes—at St. Timothy’s School.”

“Where may that be?”

“Up in New Hampshire.”

“Quite a ways off. But I suppose you don’t mind that much—having been
away to college.”

“No, I think I’ll like it. Besides,—now Lawrence will be able to go to
college this fall, and he and I will be pretty near each other. We’ll be
able to spend our holidays together. I think it’s fine.”

“It does sound so,” agreed Mr. Beasley. “Well, I’ll be sorry to lose
you, Irving. The folks all like to have you wait on ’em; you’re so
polite and tidy. But I know clerking in a country store ain’t much of a
job for a college graduate, and I’m glad you’ve found something better.”

“I’m glad if I’ve been of any use to you,” replied Irving. “I know you
didn’t expect I would be when you took me in. And your giving me this
chance has meant that I could stay on here and tutor Lawrence this
summer and at the same time pay all my living expenses. It’s been more
of a help than you know—to Lawrence as well as to me.”

“You’re both good boys,” said Mr. Beasley. “But it seems like you’re too
shy and quiet ever to make much of a lawyer, Irving—or a teacher,” he
added, in candid criticism.

Irving blushed. “Maybe I’ll get over that in time, Mr. Beasley.”

“You had better,” observed the storekeeper. “It’s of no manner of use to
anybody—not a particle. Lawrence, now, is different.”

Yes, Lawrence was different; the fact impressed itself that evening on
Irving when his brother came home from the haying field with his uncle.
Lawrence was big and ruddy and laughing; Irving was slight and delicate
and grave. The two boys went together to their room to make themselves
ready for supper.

“We finished the north meadow to-day,” said Lawrence,—“the whole of it.
So don’t blame me if I go to sleep over French verbs this evening.”

“I’ll tell you something that will wake you up,” Irving replied. “I’m
going to teach at St. Timothy’s School—in New Hampshire. So your going
to college is sure, and we’ll be only a couple of hours apart.”

“Oh, Irv!” In Lawrence’s exclamation there was more expressiveness, more
joy, than in all his brother’s carefully restrained statement. “Oh, Irv!
Isn’t it splendid! I think you’re the finest thing—!” Lawrence grasped
Irving’s hand and at the same time began thumping him on the back. Then
he opened the door and shouted down the stairs.

“Uncle Bob! Aunt Ann! Irv has some great news to-night.”

Mrs. Upton put her head out into the hall; she was setting the table and
held a plate of bread.

“What is it, Irv? Have you—have you had a letter?”

There was an anxious, almost a regretful note in her voice.

“Yes,” said Irving. “I’ll tell you about it when I come down.”

At the supper table he expounded all the details. Like Mr. Beasley, his
uncle and his aunt had never heard of St. Timothy’s School. Irving was
able to enlighten them. At college he had become familiar with its
reputation; it was one of the big preparatory schools in which the
position of teacher had seemed to him desirable almost beyond the hope
of attainment.

He recited the terms which had been offered and which he had accepted:
nine hundred dollars salary the first year, with lodging, board, washing
all provided—so that really it was the equivalent of fourteen or fifteen
hundred dollars a year. And then there would be the three months’
vacation, in which he could prosecute his law studies and earn
additional money.

“Sounds good,” said Mr. Upton.

“Of course I’m very glad,” said Mrs. Upton. “But how we shall miss you
boys! I’ve got used to having Irving away,—but to be without Lawrence,
too—”

“Yes,” said her husband with a twinkle in his eyes, “we certainly shall
miss Lawrence—especially in haying time. I’m glad you didn’t get this
news till most of the hay crop was in. No more farming for you this
year, Lawrence.”

“Why, but there’s all the south meadow uncut—”

“I’ll handle that. As long as there was so much doubt as to whether
you’d be able to go to college or not, I felt that you might be making
yourself useful first of all and studying only in the odd moments. Now
it’s different; you’ve got to settle down to hard study and nothing
else. And Irving had better devote himself entirely to you, and leave
Mr. Beasley to struggle along without any college help.”

“I don’t believe he’ll miss me very much,” Irving admitted. “And you’re
right, Uncle Bob; I can accomplish a great deal more working with
Lawrence this next month. I ought to be able to get him entered in
regular standing.”

“If I can do that,” cried Lawrence, “perhaps I’ll be able to earn my way
as Irv did—tutoring and so on—and not have to call on you or him for any
help.”

“What on earth should I do with nine hundred a year?” Irving exclaimed.

“Save it for your law school fund,” said Lawrence.

Irving shrugged his shoulders grandly. “Oh, I can earn money.”

Lawrence gave him an affectionate push. “Tut!” he said. “Be good to
yourself once in a while.”

It was a happy family that evening. The uncle and the aunt rejoiced in
the good news, even while regretting the separation.

Mr. Upton, the younger brother of the boys’ father, who had been the
village clergyman, shared his brother’s tastes; he read good books, he
would travel to hear a celebrated man speak, he had ideas which were not
bounded by his farm. He had encouraged Irving as well as Lawrence to
seek a university education. The two boys were proud, eager to free
themselves from dependence on the uncle and aunt who, after their
father’s death, had given them a home. Irving had worked his way through
college, hardly ever asking for help; he had been a capable scholar and
the faculty had found for him backward students in need of tutoring.

Meanwhile, Mr. Upton had been busily engaged in developing and
increasing his farm; that he was beginning to be prosperous Irving was
aware; that he did not more earnestly insist upon helping his nephews
stimulated their spirit of independence. They knew that they had been
left penniless; Irving sometimes suspected his uncle of parsimony, yet
this was a trait so incongruous with Mr. Upton’s genial nature that
Irving never communicated the suspicion to his brother. Irving felt,
too, that his uncle cared less for him than for Lawrence. Well, that
was natural; Irving was humble there.

When the dean of the college had said that it would be inadvisable for
Lawrence to make a start unless he had at least three hundred dollars at
command, it had seemed to Irving a little narrow on his uncle’s part not
to have come forward at once with that sum. Instead he had merely given
Lawrence the opportunity to work harder in the hay-field and so increase
his small bank account. And it had soon become apparent to Irving that
unless he and Lawrence could between them raise the money, they need not
look to their uncle for help beyond that which he was already giving.
Therefore Irving went into Mr. Beasley’s store, and hoped daily for the
letter which at last had come.

Day after day the two brothers worked together. Irving, quick,
impatient, sometimes losing his temper; Lawrence, slow, calm, turning
the edge of the teacher’s sarcasm sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with
a quiet appeal. Irving always felt ashamed after these outbreaks and
uneasily conscious that Lawrence conducted himself with greater
dignity. And Lawrence forgot Irving’s irritations in gratitude to him
for his help. “It must be a trial to teach such a numskull,” Lawrence
thought; and at the end of one particularly hard day he undertook to
console his brother by saying, “Never mind, Irv; it won’t be long now
before you have pupils who aren’t country bumpkins and don’t need to
have things pounded into their heads with an axe.”

It had been a rather savage remark that had called this out; Irving
threw down his book and perching on the arm of his brother’s chair, put
his arm around his neck and begged his forgiveness.

“As if I could ever like to teach anybody else as much as I like to
teach you!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry, Lawrence; I’ll try to keep a
little better grip on myself.”

Sometimes it seemed to Irving odd that Lawrence should be so slow at his
books; Irving did not fail to realize that with the neighbors or with
strangers, in any gathering whatsoever, Lawrence was always quick,
sympathetic, interested; he himself was the one who seemed dull and
immature.

It had been so with him at college; he had been merely the student of
books. Social life he had had none, and only now, with the difference
between his brother and himself enforcing a clearer vision, had he
become aware of some deficiency in his education. In silence he envied
Lawrence and wished that he too possessed such winning and engaging
traits.

He realized the contrast with especial keenness on the afternoon when he
and Lawrence began their eastward journey. There was a party assembled
at the station to see them off,—to see Lawrence off, as Irving
reflected, for never on his own previous departures had he occasioned
any such demonstration.

Lawrence was presented on the platform with various farewell gifts—a
pair of knit slippers from Sally Buxton, who was the prettiest girl in
the valley and who tried to slip them into his hand when no one else was
looking, and blushed when Nora Carson unfeelingly called attention to
her shy attempt; a pair of mittens from old Mrs. Fitch; a pocket comb
and mirror from the Uptons’ hired man; a paper bag of doughnuts from
Mrs. Brumby.

There were no gifts for Irving; indeed, he had never cared or thought
much, one way or the other, about any of these people clustered on the
platform. Only this summer, seeing them so frequently in Mr. Beasley’s
store, he had felt the first stirrings of interest in them; now for the
first time he was aware of a wistfulness because they did not care for
him as they did for Lawrence.

Mr. Beasley came up to him. “So you’re off—both of you. Funny thing—I
guess from the looks of you two, if a stranger was to come along, he’d
pick Lawrence out for the teacher and you for the schoolboy. Lawrence
looks as old as you, and handles himself more grown up, somehow.”

“He’s bigger,” Irving sighed.

“Yes, ’t ain’t only that,” drawled Mr. Beasley. “Though ’t is a pity
you’re so spindling; good thing for a teacher to be able to lay on the
switch good and hard when needed.”

“I don’t believe they punish with the switch at St. Timothy’s.”

“Then I guess they don’t learn the boys much. How you going to keep
order among boys if you don’t use the switch?”

At that moment the train came whistling round the bend. Irving caught up
his bag, turned and grasped Mr. Beasley’s hand, then plunged into the
crowd which had closed about his brother. His aunt turned and flung her
arms about him and kissed him; his uncle gave him a good-natured pat on
the back and then stooped and said in his ear, “Irv, if you ever get
into trouble,—go to Lawrence.”

There was the merry, kindly twinkle in his eyes, the quizzical, humorous
smile on his lips that made Irving know his uncle meant always, deep in
his heart, to do the right thing.

In the train he pondered for a few moments that last word of advice,
wondering if it had been sincere. It rather hurt his dignity, to be
referred to his younger brother in that way—and yet it pleased him too;
he was glad to have Lawrence appreciated.

Irving spent a day in Cambridge, helping his brother to get settled in
the rooms which he himself had occupied for four years. Then he bade
Lawrence good-by and resumed his journey to New Hampshire.

It was a pleasant September morning when he presented himself, a sallow,
thin-cheeked, narrow-shouldered, bespectacled youth, before Dr.
Davenport, the rector of St. Timothy’s School. The sunlight streamed in
through the southern windows of the spacious library, throwing mellow
tints on the bindings of the books which lined the opposite wall from
floor to ceiling. It was all so bright that Irving, who was troubled
with weak eyes, advanced into it blinking; and perhaps that was one
reason for the disappointment which flitted across the rector’s face—and
which Irving, who was acutely sensitive, perceived in his blinking
glance. He flushed, aware that somehow his appearance was too timorous.

But Dr. Davenport chatted with him pleasantly, told him how highly the
college authorities had recommended him, and only laughingly intimated
a surprise at finding him so young-looking.

“I hope that teaching won’t age you prematurely,” he added. “You will
probably have some trying times with the boys—we all do. But it oughtn’t
to be hard for you—especially as you will be thrown most of all with the
older boys. Mr. Williams, who has had charge of the Sixth Form dormitory
at the Upper School, is ill with typhoid fever and will probably not
come back this term. So I’m going to put you in charge there. You will
have under you twenty fellows, some of them the best in the school. But
just because they are in some ways pretty mature, don’t be—don’t be
self-effacing.”

“I understand,” said Irving. He sat on the edge of his chair, and
crumpled his handkerchief nervously in his hands. And all the time—with
his singular clearness of intuition—he was aware of the doubt and
distrust passing through Dr. Davenport’s mind.

“Don’t be afraid of the boys or show embarrassment or discomfort before
them,” continued Dr. Davenport, “and on the other hand don’t try to
cultivate dignity by being cold and austere. Be natural with them—but
always be the master.—There!” he broke off, smiling, for he saw that
Irving looked worried and seemed to be taking all this as personal
criticism—“that’s the talk that I always give to a new master; and now
I’m done. Here is a printed copy of the rules and regulations which I
advise you to study; you must try to familiarize yourself with our
customs before any of the boys arrive. To-morrow the new boys will come,
and you will report for duty at the Gymnasium, where the entrance
examinations will be held. You will find your room in the Sixth Form
dormitory, at the Upper School. I hope you will like the life here, Mr.
Upton—and I wish you every possible success in it.”

The rector gave him an encouraging handshake and another friendly smile.
But Irving departed feeling depressed and afraid. He had seen that the
rector was disappointed in him—in his appearance, in his manner. And
the rector’s little speech had given him the clue. Until now, he had not
much considered how large a part of his work would be in the management
and the discipline of the boys; the mere teaching of them was what had
been in his mind, and for that he felt perfectly competent. In college,
that was all that the tutoring, in which he had been so successful,
meant. But, confronted by the necessity of establishing and maintaining
friendly human relations with a lot of strange boys, Irving for the
first time questioned his qualifications, realizing that the rector too
was questioning them.

He became more cheerful the next day, when the new boys began to arrive
and he found himself at once with work to do. He had mastered pretty
thoroughly the names of the buildings and the geography of the place,
and it was rather pleasant to be able to give information and directions
to those younger and more ignorant than himself.

It was pleasant, too, to have one mother who was wandering round vaguely
with her small son and to whom he shyly proffered assistance, show such
appreciation of his courtesy and end by appealing to him to keep always
a friendly eye on her little forlorn Walter. As it turned out, Irving
never afterwards came much into contact with the boy, who lived in a
different building and was not in any of his classes; he asked about him
from time to time, and discovered that Walter was a mischievous person,
not troubled by homesickness.

But most agreeable and reassuring was it to take charge of the
examination-room, where the new boys were undergoing the tests of their
scholarship. Most of them were candidates for the Second, Third, and
Fourth Forms, and their ages ranged from twelve to fifteen; Irving sat
at a desk on the platform and surveyed them while they worked, or
tiptoed down the aisle in response to an appeal from some uplifted hand.

He had come so recently from examination-rooms where he had been one of
the pupils that this experience exhilarated him; it conferred upon him
an authority that he enjoyed. He liked to be addressed by these
nice-mannered young boys as “sir,” and to be recognized by them so
unquestioningly as a person to whom deference must be shown. Altogether
this first day with the new boys inspired him with confidence, and at
the end of it he attacked the pile of examination books
enthusiastically.

Mr. Barclay aided him in that task; Mr. Barclay was a young master also,
comparatively, though he had had several years’ experience. Irving was
attracted to him at once, and was grateful for the way in which he made
suggestions when there was some uncertainty as to how a boy should be
graded.

Irving liked, too, the genial chuckle which preceded an invitation to
inspect some candidate’s egregious blunder; Irving would read and smile
quietly, unaware that Barclay was watching him and wondering how
appreciative he might be of the ludicrous.

Two nights Irving spent all alone in the Sixth Form dormitory; it amused
him to walk up and down the corridors with the list of those to whom
rooms there had been assigned. “Collingwood, Westby, Scarborough,
Morrill, Anderson, Baldersnaith, Hill”—some of them had occupied these
rooms as Fifth Formers, and Irving had asked Mr. Barclay about them.

Louis Collingwood was captain of the school football team; Scarborough
was captain of the school crew.

“Neither of them will give you any trouble,” said Barclay. “Scarborough
used to be a cub, but he has developed very much in the last year or
two, and now he and Collingwood are the best-liked fellows in the
school. They have a proper sense of their responsibility as leaders of
the school, and are more likely to help you than to make trouble.
Morrill is their faithful follower, though a little harum-scarum at
times. Westby—” the master hesitated over that name and looked at Irving
with a measuring glance—“Westby is what you might call the school
jester. He’s very popular with the boys—not equally so with all the
masters. Personally I’m rather fond of him. He’s almost too quick-witted
sometimes.”

That evening Barclay took the new master home to dine with him. Mrs.
Barclay was as cordial and as kind as her husband; Irving began to feel
more than satisfied with his surroundings.

“Pity you’re not married, Upton,” Barclay said, half jokingly. “You’d
escape keeping dormitory if you were—which you’ll find the meanest of
all possible jobs. And then if your wife’s the right kind—the boys have
to be pretty decent to you in order to keep on her good side.”

Mrs. Barclay laughed. “I suppose that’s the only reason they’re pretty
decent to you, William!—You’ll find it easy, Mr. Upton,—for the reason
that they’re a pretty decent lot of boys.”

The next day at noon the old boys began to arrive. Irving was coming out
of the auditorium, where he had been correcting the last set of
examination papers, when a barge drew up before the study building and
boys clutching hand-bags tumbled out and hurried into the building to
greet the rector.

Irving stood for a few moments looking on with interest: other barges
kept coming over the hill, interspersed with carriages, in which a few
arrived more magnificently.

It occurred to Irving that perhaps he had better hasten to his dormitory
in order to be on hand when his charges should begin to appear; he was
just starting away when three boys arm in arm rushed out of the study
building. They came prancing up to him, all smiles and twinkles; they
were boys of seventeen or eighteen. They confronted him, blocking his
path; and the one in the middle, a slim, straight fellow in a blue suit,
said,—

“Hello, new kid! What name?”

A blush of embarrassment mounted in Irving’s cheeks; feeling it, he
conceived it all the more advisable to assert his dignity. So he said
without a smile, in a constrained voice,—

“I am not a new kid. I am a master.”

The three boys who had been beaming on him with good humor in their
eyes stared blankly. Then the one in the middle, with a sudden whoop of
laughter, swung the two others round and led them off at a run; and as
they went, their delighted laughter floated back to Irving’s ears.

His cheeks were tingling, almost as if they had been slapped. He
followed the boys at a distance; they moved towards the Upper School.
His heart sank; what if they were in his dormitory?

He entered the building just as the last of the three was going up the
Sixth Form dormitory stairs.




CHAPTER II

HE ACHIEVES A NAME FOR HIMSELF


At the foot of the staircase Irving hesitated until the sound of the
voices and footsteps had ceased. The three boys had not seen him when he
had entered; he was wondering whether he had better be courageous, go
right up after them, and introduce himself,—just as if they had not
caught him off his guard and put him into a ridiculous position,—or
delay a little while in the hope that their memory of it would be less
keen.

He decided that he had better be courageous. When he reached the top
floor, he went into his room; he was feeling nervous over the prospect
of confronting his charges, and he wished to be sure that his hair and
his necktie looked right. While he was examining himself in the mirror,
he heard a door open on the corridor and a boy call, “Lou! Did you know
that Mr. Williams won’t be back this term?”

Farther down the corridor a voice answered, “No! What’s the matter?”

“Typhoid. Mr. Randolph told me.”

“Who’s taken his place?” It was another voice that asked this question.

“A new man—named Upton. I haven’t laid eyes on him yet.”

“Wouldn’t it be a joke—!” The speaker paused to laugh. “Suppose it
should turn out to be the new kid!”

“‘I am not a new kid; I am a master.’”

The mimicry was so accurate that Irving winced and then flushed to the
temples. In the laughter that it produced he closed his door quietly and
sat down to think. He couldn’t be courageous now; he felt that he could
not step out and face those fellows who were laughing at him. Of course
they were the ones who ought to be embarrassed by his appearance, not
he; but Irving felt they would lend one another support and brazen it
through, and that he would be the one to exhibit weakness. He decided
that he must wait and try to make himself known to each one of them
separately—that only by such a beginning would he be likely to engage
their respect.

It was the first time that he had been brought face to face with his
pitiable diffidence. He was ashamed; he thought of how differently
Lawrence would have met the situation—how much more directly he would
have dealt with it. Irving resolved that hereafter he would not be
afraid of any multitude of boys. But he refrained from making his
presence known in the dormitory that afternoon.

At half past five o’clock he went downstairs to the rooms of Mr.
Randolph, who had charge of the Upper School. Mr. Marcy, the Fifth Form
dormitory master, and Mr. Wythe, the Fourth Form dormitory master, were
also there. They were veterans, comparatively, and it was to meet them
and benefit by what they could tell him that Irving had been invited.
All three congratulated him on his good fortune in obtaining the Sixth
Form dormitory.

“The older they are, the less trouble they are,” said Wythe. “My first
year I was over at the Lower School, looking after the little kids. Half
the time they’re sick and whimpering and have to be coddled, and the
rest of the time they have to be spanked.”

“It hardly matters what age they are,” lamented Marcy, pessimistically.
“There’s bound to be a dormitory disorder once in so often.”

“What do you do in that case?” asked Irving.

“Jump hard on some one,” answered Wythe. “Try to get the leader of it,
but if you can’t get him, get somebody. Report him,—give him three
sheets.”

“That means writing Latin lines for three hours on half-holidays?”

“Yes, and six marks off in Decorum for the week. Of course they’ll come
wheedling round you, wanting to be excused; you have to use your own
discretion about that.”

“Do you have any Sixth Form classes?” asked Marcy.

“Yes,” Irving answered. “In Geometry.”

“That means you’ll have to take the upper hand and hold it, right from
the start. If you have one crowd in dormitory to look after and another
crowd in class, you can afford to relax a little now and then; but when
it’s the same boys in both—they watch for any sign of weakening.”

“There will be only two of them at your table, any way, Mr. Upton,” said
Randolph. He passed over a list. “The others are all Fourth and Fifth
Formers—only Westby and Carroll from the Sixth!”

“Westby!” Wythe sighed. “Maybe we were premature in congratulating you.
I’d forgotten about Westby.”

“What is the matter with him?” asked Irving.

“His cleverness, and his attractiveness. He smiles and smiles and is a
villain still. He was in my dormitory year before last and kept it in a
constant turmoil. And yet if you have any sense of humor at all you
can’t help being amused by him—even sympathizing with him—though it’s
apt to be at your own expense.”

“He’s perfectly conscienceless,” declared Marcy.

“And yet there’s no real harm in him,” said Randolph.

“He seems to be something of a puzzle.” Irving spoke uneasily. “And he’s
to be at my table—I’m to have a table?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, one or two of the Sixth Formers—Scarborough, for
instance—have tables. But we don’t let all the Sixth Formers eat
together; we try to scatter them. And Westby and Carroll have fallen to
your lot.”

“If you happen to see either of them before supper, I should like to
meet them,” Irving said.

He felt that if he could make their acquaintance separately and without
witnesses, he could produce a better impression than if he waited and
confronted them before a whole table of strange faces.

But as it happened, that was just the way that he did meet Westby and
Carroll. When the supper bell sounded, the hallway of the Upper School
was crowded with boys, examining the schedule which had been posted and
which assigned them to their seats in the dining-room. Irving, after
waiting nervously until more than half the number had entered the
dining-room and deriving no help from any of the other masters, went in
and stood at the head of the third table, as he had been instructed to
do. Four or five boys were already standing there at their places; they
looked at him with curiosity and bowed to him politely. The crowd as it
entered thinned; Irving was beginning to hope that Westby and Carroll
had gone elsewhere,—and then, just as Mr. Randolph was mounting to the
head table on the dais, two boys slipped in and stood at the seats at
Irving’s right. He recognized them as having been two of the three who
had laughed when he had proclaimed himself a master. One was the slim,
tall fellow who had called him “new kid.”

For a moment at Irving’s table, after the boys had rattled into their
seats, there was silence. In front of Irving were a platter of cold
tongue and a dish of beans, and he began to put portions of each on the
plates piled before him. Then as he passed the first plate along the
line he looked up and said, “I think we’d better find out who everybody
is. So each fellow, as he gets his plate, will please sing out his
name.”

That was not such a bad beginning; there was a general grin which
broadened into a laugh when the first boy blushingly owned to the name
of Walnut. Then came Lacy and Norris, and then Westby.

“Oh,” said Irving. “I think you’re to be in my dormitory, aren’t you?”

“I believe so.” Westby looked at him quizzically, as if expecting him to
make some reference to their encounter; but Irving passed on to his next
neighbor, Carroll, and then began with the other side of the table.

He liked the appearance of the boys; they were quiet-looking and
respectful, and they had been responsive enough to his suggestion about
announcing their names. A happy inspiration told him that so long as he
could keep on taking the initiative with boys, he would have no serious
trouble. But it was one thing to recognize an effective mode of conduct,
and another to have the resourcefulness for carrying it out. Irving was
just thinking what next he should say, when Westby fell upon him.

“Mr. Upton,”—Westby’s voice was curiously distinct, in spite of its
quietness,—“wasn’t it funny, our taking you for a new kid this
afternoon?”

Because the question was so obviously asked in a lull to embarrass him,
Irving was embarrassed. The interest of all the boys at the table had
been skillfully excited, and Westby leaned forward in front of Carroll,
with mischievous eyes and smile. Irving felt his color rising; he felt
both abashed and annoyed.

“Why, yes,” he said hesitatingly. “I—I was a little startled.”

“Did they take you for a new kid, Mr. Upton?” asked Blake, the Fifth
Former, who sat on Irving’s left.

“For a moment, yes,” admitted Irving, anxious not to pursue the subject.

But Westby proceeded to explain with gusto, while the whole table
listened. “Lou Collingwood and Carrie here and I were in front of the
Study, and out came Mr. Upton. And Lou wanted to nail him for the
Pythians, so we all pranced up to him, and I said, ‘Hello, new kid; what
name, please?’—just like that; didn’t I, Mr. Upton?”

“Yes,” said Irving grudgingly. He had an uneasy feeling that he was
being made an object of general entertainment; certainly the eyes of all
the boys at the table were fixed upon him smilingly.

“What happened then?” asked the blunt Blake.

“Why, then,” continued Westby, “Mr. Upton told us that he wasn’t a new
kid at all, but a new master. You may imagine we were surprised—weren’t
we, Mr. Upton?”

“Oh, I could hardly tell—”

“The joke was certainly on us. As the French say, it was a
_contretemps_. To think that after all the years we’d been here, we
couldn’t tell a new kid from a new master!”

Irving was mildly bewildered. He could not quite determine whether
Westby was telling the story more as a joke on himself or on him.
Anyway, in spite of the temporary embarrassment which they had caused
him, there seemed to be nothing offensive in the remarks. He liked
Westby’s face; it was alert and good-humored, and the cajoling quality
in the boy’s voice and the twinkle in his eyes were quite attractive. In
fact, his manner during supper was so agreeable that Irving quite forgot
it was this youth whom he had overheard mimicking him: “I am not a new
kid; I am a master.”

After supper there were prayers in the Common Room; then all the boys
except the Sixth Formers went to the Study building to sit for an hour
under the eyes of a master, to read or write letters. On subsequent
evenings they would have to employ this period in studying, but as yet
no lessons had been assigned; the classroom work had not begun. The
Sixth Form were exempt from the necessity of attending Study, and had
the privilege of preparing their lessons in their own rooms. Irving
found, on going up to his dormitory, that the boys were visiting one
another, helping one another unpack, darting up and down the corridor
and carrying on loud conversations. He decided, as there were no lessons
for them to prepare, not to interfere; their sociability seemed harmless
enough.

So, leaving the door of his room open that he might hear and suppress
any incipient disorder, he began a letter to Lawrence. He thought at
first that he would confide to his brother the little troubles which
were annoying him. But when he set about it, they seemed really too
petty to transcribe; surely he was man enough to bear such worries
without appealing to a younger brother for advice.

There was a loud burst of laughter from a room in which several boys had
gathered. It was followed by the remark in Westby’s pleasant,
persuasive voice,—

“Look out, fellows, or we’ll have Kiddy Upton down on us.”

“Kiddy Upton!” another voice exclaimed in delight, and there was more
laughter.

Kiddy Upton! So that was to be his name. Of course boys gave nicknames
to their teachers,—Irving remembered some appellations that had
prevailed even at college. But none of them seemed so slighting or so
jeering as this of Kiddy; and Irving flushed as he had done when he had
been taken for a “new kid.” But now his sensitiveness was even more
hurt; it wounded him that Westby, that pleasant, humorous person, should
have been the one to apply the epithet.

Westby began singing “The Wearing of the Green,” to an accompaniment on
a banjo. Presently four or five voices, with extravagant brogues, were
uplifted in the chorus:—

    “’Tis the most disthressful counthry
      That ever there was seen;
    For they’re hanging men and women too
      For wearin’ of the green.”

There was much applause; boys from other rooms went hurrying down the
corridor. The banjo-player struck up “The Road to Mandalay;” again
Irving recognized Westby’s voice.

Irving decided that he must not be thin-skinned; it was his part to step
up, be genial, make himself known to all these boys who were to be under
his care, and show them that he wished to be friendly. He did not wait
to debate with himself the wisdom of this resolve or to consider how he
should proceed; he acted on the impulse. He walked down the corridor to
the third room on the left—the door of Westby’s room, from which the
sounds of joviality proceeded. He knocked; some one called “Come in;”
and Irving opened the door.

Three boys sat in chairs, three sat on the bed; Westby himself was
squatting cross-legged on the window seat, with the banjo across his
knees. They all rose politely when Irving entered.

“I thought I would drop in and make your acquaintance,” said Irving.
“We’re bound to know one another some time.”

“My name’s Collingwood,” said the boy nearest him, offering his hand. He
was a healthy, light-haired, solidly put together youth, with a genial
smile. “This is Scarborough, Mr. Upton.”

The biggest of them all came forward at that and shook hands. Irving
thought that his deep-set dark eyes were disconcertingly direct in their
gaze; and a lock of black hair overhung his brow in a far from
propitiating manner. Yet his bearing was dignified and manly; Irving
felt that he might be trusted to show magnanimity.

“Here’s Carroll,” continued Collingwood; and Irving said, “Oh, I know
Carroll; we sat together at supper.” Carroll said nothing, merely smiled
in an agreeable, non-committal manner; so far it was all that Irving had
discovered he could do.

“That fellow with the angel face is Morrill,” Collingwood went on, “and
the one next to him, with the aristocratic features, is Baldersnaith,
and this red-head here is Dennison,—and that’s Westby.”

Irving, shaking hands round the circle, said, “Oh, I know Westby.”

“Sit down, won’t you, Mr. Upton?” Westby pushed his armchair forward.

“Thank you; don’t let me interrupt the singing.”

“Maybe you’ll join us?”

Irving shook his head. “I wish I could. But please go on.”

Westby squatted again on the window-seat and plucked undecidedly at the
banjo-strings. Then he cleared his throat and launched upon a negro
melody; he sang it with the unctuous abandon of the darkey, and Irving
listened and looked on enviously, admiring the display of talent. Westby
sang another song, and then turned and pushed up the window.

“Awfully hot for this time of year, isn’t it?” he said. “Fine moonlight
night; wouldn’t it be great to go for a swim?”

“Um!” said Morrill, appreciatively.

“Will you let us go, Mr. Upton?” Westby asked the question pleadingly.
“Won’t you please let us go? It’s such a fine warm moonlight night—and
it isn’t as if school had really begun, you know.”

“But I think the rules don’t permit your being out at this time of
night, do they?” said Irving.

“Well, but as I say, school hasn’t really begun yet. And besides, Scabby
here is almost as good as a master—and so is Lou Collingwood; I’m the
only really irresponsible one in the bunch—”

“Where do you go to swim?”

“In the pond, just beyond the isthmus—only about a quarter of a mile
from here. Come on, fellows, Mr. Upton’s going to let us go.”

Irving laughed uneasily. “Oh, I didn’t say that. If Mr. Randolph is
willing that you should go, I wouldn’t object.”

“You’re in charge of this dormitory,” argued Westby. “And if you gave us
permission, Mr. Randolph wouldn’t say anything.”

“I don’t feel that I can make an exception to the rules,” said Irving.

“But school hasn’t really begun yet,” persisted Westby.

“I think it really has, so far as observing the rules is concerned,”
replied Irving.

“You might go with us, sir—and that would make it all right.”

“But I don’t believe I want to go in swimming this evening.”

“I’m awfully afraid you’re going to be just like granite, Mr. Upton,”
sighed Westby,—“the man with the iron jaw.” He turned on the others a
humorous look; they all were smiling. Irving felt uncomfortable again,
suspecting that Westby was making game of him, yet not knowing in what
way to meet it—except by silence.

“I’ll tell you what I will do with you to-morrow, Wes,” said
Collingwood. “I’ll challenge you to that water duel that we were to have
pulled off last June.”

“All right, Lou,” said Westby. “Carrie here will be my trusty squire and
will paddle my canoe.”

Carroll grinned his assent.

“I’ll pick Ned Morrill for my second,” said Collingwood. “And Scabby can
be referee.”

“What’s a water duel?” asked Irving.

“They go out in canoes, two in each canoe,” answered Scarborough. “One
fellow paddles, and the other stands up in the bow with a long pole and
a big fat sponge tied to the end of it. Then the two canoes manœuvre,
and try to get within striking distance, and the fellow or canoe that
gets upset first loses. We had a tournament last spring, and these two
pairs came through to the finals, but never fought it out—baseball or
tennis or something always interfered.”

“It must be quite an amusing game,” said Irving.

“Come up to the swimming hole to-morrow afternoon if you want to see
it,” said Collingwood, hospitably. “I’ll just about drown Westby. It
will be a good show.”

“Thank you; I’d like to—”

“But don’t you think, Mr. Upton,”—again it was Westby, with his cajoling
voice and his wheedling smile,—“that I might have just one evening’s
moonlight practice for it?”

“Oh, I don’t believe you need any practice.”

“But you said I might if Mr. Randolph would consent. I don’t see why you
shouldn’t be independent, as well as liberal.”

There was a veiled insinuation in this, for all the good-natured,
teasing tone, and Irving did not like it.

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t let you go swimming
to-night.—I’m glad to have met you all.” And so he took his departure,
and presently the sound of banjo and singing rose again from Westby’s
room.

Irving proceeded to visit the other rooms of the dormitory and to make
the acquaintance of the occupants—boys engaged mostly in arranging
bureau drawers or hanging pictures. They were all friendly enough; it
seemed to him that he could get on with boys individually; it was when
they faced him in numbers that they alarmed him and caused his manner
to be hesitating and embarrassed. One big fellow named Allison was
trying to hang a picture when Irving entered; it was a large and heavy
picture, and Irving held it straight while Allison stood on a chair and
set the hook on the moulding. Allison thanked Irving with the gratitude
of one unaccustomed to receiving such consideration; indeed, his
uncouthness and unkemptness made him one of those unfortunate boys who
suffered now and then from persecution. Irving learned afterwards that
the crowd he had met in Westby’s room hung together and were the leaders
not merely in the affairs of the dormitory, but of the school.

At half past nine the big bell on the Study building rang twice—the
signal for the boys to go to their respective rooms. Irving had been
informed of the little ceremony which was the custom; he stepped out in
front of his door at the end of the corridor, and one after another the
boys came up, shook hands with him, and bade him good-night. Westby came
to him with the engaging and yet somewhat disquieting smile which
recalled to Irving Mr. Wythe’s words, “He smiles and smiles, but is a
villain still.” It was a smile which seemed to suggest the discernment
and enjoyment of all one’s weak spots.

“_Good_-night, Mr. Upton,” said Westby, and his voice was excessively
urbane. It made Irving look forward to a better acquaintance with both
expectancy and apprehension.

The first morning of actual school work went well enough; Irving met his
classes, which were altogether in mathematics, assigned them lessons,
and managed to keep them and himself busy. From one of them he brought
away some algebra exercises, which he spent part of the afternoon in
correcting. When he had finished this work, the invitation to witness
the water duel occurred to his mind.

He found no other master to bear him company, so he set off by himself
through the woods which bordered the pond behind the Gymnasium. He came
at last to the “isthmus”—a narrow dyke of stones which cut off a long
inlet and bridged the way over to a wooded peninsula that jutted out
into the pond. On the farther side of this peninsula, secluded behind
trees and bushes, was the swimming hole.

As Irving approached, he heard voices; he drew nearer and saw the bare
backs of boys undressing and heard then the defiances which they were
hurling at one another—phrased in the language of Ivanhoe.

“Nay, by my halidome, but I shall this day do my devoir right worthily
upon the body of yon false knight,” quoth Westby, as he carefully turned
his shirt right side out.

“A murrain on thee! Beshrew me if I do not spit thee upon my trusty
lance,” replied Collingwood, as he drew on his swimming tights.

Then some one trotted out upon the spring-board, gave a bounce and a
leap, and went into the water with a splash.

“How is it, Ned?” called Westby; and Irving came up as Morrill, reaching
out for a long side stroke, shouted, “Oh, fine—warm and fine.”

“Hello, Mr. Upton.” It was Baldersnaith who first saw him; Baldersnaith,
Dennison, and Smythe were fully dressed and were sitting under a tree
looking on.

“You’re just in time,” said Collingwood.

Scarborough, stripped like Westby and Carroll and Morrill and
Collingwood, was out on the pond, paddling round in a canoe. He was
crouched on one knee in the middle, and the canoe careened over with his
weight, so that the gunwale was only an inch or two above the surface.
He was evidently an expert paddler, swinging the craft round, this way
and that, without ever taking the paddle out of the water.

Two other canoes were hauled up near the spring-board; Carroll was
bending over one of them.

“Bring me my lethal weapon, Carrie,” Westby commanded. “I want to show
Mr. Upton.—Is the button on tight?”

Carroll produced from the canoe a long pole with an enormous sponge
fastened to one end; he pulled at the sponge and announced, “Yes, the
button’s on tight,” and passed the pole over to Westby.

Westby made one or two experimental lunges with it and remarked
musingly, “When I catch him square above the bread line with this—!”

“Come on, then!” said Collingwood. “Come here, Ned!”

Morrill swam ashore and pushed off in one of the canoes with
Collingwood—taking the stern seat and the paddle. Collingwood knelt in
the bow, with his spear laid across the gun-wales in front of him. In
like manner Westby and Carroll took to the water.

“This is the best two bouts out of three,” called Scarborough, as he
circled round. “Don’t you want to come aboard, Mr. Upton, and help
judge?”

“Why, yes, thank you,” said Irving.

So Scarborough called, “Wait a moment, fellows,” and paddling ashore,
took on his passenger. Then he sped out to the middle of the bay; the
two other canoes were separated by about fifty feet.

“Charge!” cried Scarborough, and Morrill and Carroll began paddling
towards each other, while in the bows Collingwood and Westby rose to
their feet and held their spears in front of them. They advanced
cautiously and then swung apart, evading the collision—each trying to
tempt the other to stab and overreach.

“Oh, you’re both scared!” jeered Baldersnaith from the shore.

The canoes swung about and made for each other again; and this time
passed within striking distance. Westby’s aim missed, his sponge-tipped
lance slid past Collingwood’s shoulder, and the next instant
Collingwood’s sponge—well weighted with water—smote Westby full in the
chest and hove him overboard. For one moment Carroll struggled to keep
the canoe right side up, but in vain; it tipped and filled, and with a
shout he plunged in head foremost after his comrade.

They came up and began to push their canoe ashore; the two other canoes
drew alongside and assisted, Scarborough and Morrill paddling, while
Irving and Collingwood laid hold of the thwarts.

“That’s all right; I’ll get you this time,” spluttered Westby. “We’re
going to use strategy now.”

They emptied the water out of the canoe and proceeded again to the
battleground. Then, when Scarborough gave the word, Carroll began
paddling madly; he and Westby bore down upon their antagonists at a most
threatening speed. Morrill swung to the right to get out of their path;
and then suddenly Carroll swung in the opposite direction—with what
strategic purpose neither Irving nor Scarborough had time to conjecture.
For they were loitering close on that side, not expecting any such
manœuvre; the sharp turn drove the bow of Carroll’s canoe straight for
the waist of Scarborough’s, and Westby with an excited laugh undertook
to fend off with his pole, lost his balance, and trying to recover it,
upset both canoes together.

Irving felt himself going, heard Westby’s laughing shout, “Look out, Mr.
Upton!” and then went under.

[Illustration: THE CANOES SWUNG ABOUT AND MADE FOR EACH OTHER]




CHAPTER III

WESTBY’S AMUSEMENTS


The water was warm, but Irving swallowed a good deal of it and also was
conscious of the fact that he had on a perfectly good suit of clothes.
So he came to the surface, choking and annoyed; and when he recovered
his faculties, he observed first of all Westby’s grinning face.

“You can swim all right, can’t you, Mr. Upton?” said Westby. “I thought
for a moment we might have to dive for you.”

Irving clutched at the stern of the capsized canoe and said, rather
curtly, “I’m not dressed to enjoy swimming.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Scarborough. “But I never thought they were
going to turn that way; I don’t know what Carrie thought he was doing—”

“I’d have shown you some strategy if you hadn’t blundered into us,”
declared Carroll.

“Blundered into you! There was no need for Wes to give us such a poke,
anyhow.”

Westby replied merely with an irritating chuckle—irritating at least to
Irving, who felt that he should be showing more contrition.

Collingwood and Morrill came alongside, both laughing, jeering at Westby
and offering polite expressions of solicitude to the master. They told
him to lay hold of the tail of their canoe, and then they towed him
ashore as rapidly as possible. When he drew himself up, dripping, on the
bank, Baldersnaith, Dennison, and Smythe were all on the broad grin, and
from the water floated the sound of Westby’s merriment.

Irving stood for a moment, letting himself drip, quite undecided as to
what he should do. He had never been ducked before, with all his clothes
on; the clammy, weighted sensation was most unpleasant, the thought of
his damaged and perhaps ruined suit was galling, the indignity of his
appearance was particularly hard to bear. He felt that Baldersnaith and
the others were trying to be as polite and considerate as possible, and
yet they could not refrain from exhibiting their amusement, their
delight.

Scarborough, who had swum ahead of the others, waded ashore and looked
him over. “I tell you what you’d better do, Mr. Upton,” he said. “You’d
better take your clothes off, wring them out, and spread them out to
dry. They’ll dry in this sun and wind. And while they’re doing that, you
can come in swimming with us.”

Irving hesitated a moment; instinct told him that the advice was
sensible, yet he shrank from accepting it; he felt that for a master to
do what Scarborough suggested would be undignified, and might somehow
compromise his position. “I think I’d better run home and rub myself
down and put on some dry things,” he replied.

“Well,” said Scarborough, “just as you say. Sorry I got you into this
mess.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Irving.

He walked away, with the water trickling uncomfortably down him inside
his clothes and swashing juicily in his shoes. He liked Scarborough for
the way he had acted, but he felt less kindly towards Westby. He was by
no means sure that Westby had not deliberately soused him and then
pretended it was an accident. He remembered Westby’s mirthful laugh just
when the thing was happening; and certainly if it had really been an
accident Westby had shown very little concern. He had been indecently
amused; he was so still; his clear joyous laugh was ringing after Irving
even now, and Irving felt angrily that he was at this moment a
ridiculous figure. To be running home drenched!—probably it would have
been better if he had done what Scarborough had suggested, less
undignified, more manly really. But he couldn’t turn back now.

He was cold and his teeth had begun to chatter, so he started to run. He
hoped that when he came out of the woods he might be fortunate enough to
elude observation on the way to the Upper School, but in this he was
disappointed. As he jogged by the Study building, with his clothes
jouncing and slapping heavily upon his shoulders, out came the rector
and met him face to face.

“Upset canoeing?” asked the rector with a smile.

“Yes,” Irving answered; he stood for a moment awkwardly.

“Well, it will happen sometimes,” said the rector. “Don’t catch cold.”
And he passed on.

There was some consolation for Irving in this matter-of-fact view. In
the rector’s eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the
incident. But when a moment later he passed a group of Fourth Formers
and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity
had suffered very much. He felt that within a short time his misfortune
would be the talk of the school.

At supper it was as he expected it would be. Westby set about airing the
story for the benefit of the table, appealing now and then to Irving
himself for confirmation of the passages which were least gratifying to
Irving’s vanity. “You _did_ look so woe-begone when you stood up on
shore, Mr. Upton,” was the genial statement which Irving especially
resented. To have Westby tell the boys the first day how he had called
the new master a new kid and the second day how he had ducked him was a
little too much; it seemed to Irving that Westby was slyly amusing
himself by undermining his authority. But the boy’s manner was
pleasantly ingratiating always; Irving felt baffled. Carroll did not
help him much towards an interpretation; Carroll sat by self-contained,
quietly intelligent, amused. Irving liked both the boys, and yet as the
days passed, he seemed to grow more and more uneasy and anxious in their
society.

In the classroom he was holding his own; he was a good mathematical
scholar, he prepared the lessons thoroughly, and he found it generally
easy to keep order by assigning problems to be worked out in class. The
weather continued good, so that during play time the fellows were out
of doors instead of loafing round in dormitory. They all had their own
little affairs to organize; athletic clubs and literary societies held
their first meetings; there was a process of general shaking down; and
in the interest and industry occasioned by all this, there was not much
opportunity or disposition to make trouble.

But the first Sunday was a bad day. In a boys’ school bad weather is apt
to be accompanied by bad behavior; on this Sunday it poured. The boys,
having put on their best clothes, were obliged, when they went out to
chapel, to wear rubbers and to carry umbrellas—an imposition against
which they rebelled. After chapel, there was an hour before dinner, and
in that hour most of the Sixth Formers sought their rooms—or sought one
another’s rooms; it seemed to Irving, who was trying to read and who had
a headache, that there was a needless amount of rushing up and down the
corridors and of slamming of doors. By and by the tumult became
uproarious, shouts of laughter and the sound of heavy bodies being
flung against walls reached his ears; he emerged then and saw the
confusion at the end of the corridor. Allison was suspended two or three
feet above the floor, by a rope knotted under his arms; it was the rope
that was used for raising trunks up to the loft above. In lowering it
from the loft some one had trespassed on forbidden ground. Westby,
Collingwood, Dennison, Scarborough, and half a dozen others were
gathered, enjoying Allison’s ludicrous struggles. His plight was not
painful, only absurd; and Irving himself could not at first keep back a
smile. But he came forward and said,—

“Oh, look here, fellows, whoever is responsible for this will have to
climb up and release Allison.”

Westby turned with his engaging smile.

“Yes, but, Mr. Upton, who do you suppose is responsible? I don’t see how
we can fix the responsibility, do you?”

“I will undertake to fix it,” said Irving. “Westby, suppose you climb
that ladder and let Allison down.”

“I don’t think you’re approaching this matter in quite a judicial
spirit, Mr. Upton,” said Westby. “Of course no man wants to be
arbitrary; he wants to be just. It really seems to me, Mr. Upton, that
no action should be taken until the matter has been more thoroughly
sifted.”

The other boys, with the exception of Allison, were chuckling at this
glib persuasiveness. Westby stood there, in a calmly respectful, even
deferential attitude, as if animated only by a desire to serve the
truth.

“We will have no argument about it, Westby,” said Irving. “Please climb
the ladder at once and release Allison.”

“I beg of you, Mr. Upton,” said Westby in a tone of distress, “don’t,
please don’t, confuse argument with impartial inquiry; nothing is more
distasteful to me than argument. I merely ask for investigation; I court
it in your own interest as well as mine.”

Irving grew rigid. His head was throbbing painfully; the continued
snickering all round him and Westby’s increasing confidence and fluency
grated on his nerves. He drew out his watch.

“I will give you one minute in which to climb that ladder,” he said.

“Mr. Upton, you wish to be a just man,” pleaded Westby. “Even though you
have the great weight of authority—and years”—Westby choked a
laugh—“behind you, don’t do an unjust and arbitrary thing. Allison
himself wouldn’t have you—would you, Allison?”

The victim grinned uncomfortably.

“Mr. Upton,” urged Westby, “you wouldn’t have me soil these hands?” He
displayed his laudably clean, pink fingers. “Of course, if I go up there
I shall get my hands all dirty—and equally of course if I had been up
there, they would be all dirty now. Surely you believe in the value of
circumstantial evidence; therefore, before we fix the responsibility,
let us search for the dirty pair of hands.”

“Time is up,” said Irving, closing his watch.

“But what is time when justice trembles in the balance?” argued Westby.
“When the innocent is in danger of being punished for the guilty, when—”

“Westby, please climb that ladder at once.”

“So young and so inexorable!” murmured Westby, setting his foot upon the
ladder.

Irving’s face was red; the tittering of the audience was making him
angry. He held his eyes on Westby, who made a slow, grunting progress up
three rungs and then stopped.

“Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, sir!” Westby’s voice was ingratiating. “Mayn’t
Allison sing for us, sir?”

Allison grinned again foolishly and sent a sprawling foot out towards
his persecutor; the others laughed.

“Keep on climbing,” said Irving.

Westby resumed his toilsome way, and as he moved he kept murmuring
remarks to Allison, to the others, to Irving himself, half audible,
rapid, in an aggrieved tone.

“Don’t see why you want to be conspicuous this way, Allison.—Won’t
sing—amuse anybody—ornamental, I suppose—good timekeeper though—almost
hear you tick. Mr. Upton—setting watch by you now—awfully severe kind of
man—”

So mumbling, with the responsive titter still continuing below and
Irving standing there stern and red, Westby disappeared into the loft.
There was a moment’s silence, then a sudden clicking of a ratchet wheel,
and Allison began to rise rapidly towards the ceiling.

“A-ay!” cried Allison in amazement.

The boys burst out in delighted laughter.

“Westby! Westby! Stop that!” Irving’s voice was shrill with anger.

Allison became stationary once more, and Westby displayed an innocent,
surprised face at the loft opening.

“If there is any more nonsense in letting Allison down, I shall really
have to report you.” Irving’s voice rose tremulously to a high key; he
was trying hard to control it.

Westby gazed down with surprise. “Why, I guess I must have turned the
crank the wrong way, don’t you suppose I did, Mr. Upton?—Don’t worry,
Allison, old man; I’ll rescue you, never fear. I’ll try to lower you
gently, so that you won’t get hurt; you’ll call out if you find you’re
coming down too fast, won’t you?”

He withdrew his head, and presently the ratchet wheel clicked and
slowly, very slowly, Allison began to descend. When his feet were a
couple of inches from the floor, the descent stopped.

“All right now?” called Westby from above.

“No!” bawled Allison.

“Ve-ry gently then, ve-ry gently,” replied Westby; and Allison, reaching
for the floor with his toes, had at last the satisfaction of feeling it.
He wriggled out of the noose and smoothed out his rumpled coat.

“Saved!” exclaimed Westby, peering down from the opening, and then he
added sorrowfully, “Saved, and no word of gratitude to his rescuer!”

“Now, boys, don’t stand round here any longer; we’ve had enough
nonsense; go to your rooms,” said Irving.

“Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, sir!” clamored Westby, and the boys
lingered.

Irving looked up in exasperation. “What is it now?”

“May I come down, please, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Carefully Westby descended the ladder, mumbling all the time sentences
of which the lingerers caught fragmentary scraps: “Horrible experience
that of Allison’s—dreadful situation to have been in—so fortunate that I
was at hand—the man who dares—reckless courage, ready resource—home
again!” He dropped to the floor, and raising his hand to his forehead,
saluted Irving.

“Come, move on, all you fellows,” said Irving; the others were still
hanging about and laughing; “move on, move on! Carroll, you and Westby
take that ladder down and put it back where you got it.”

He stayed to see that the order was carried out; then he returned to his
room. He felt that though he had conquered in this instance, he had
adopted the wrong tone, and that he must offer something else than
peevishness and irritation to ward off Westby’s humor; already it gave
indications of becoming too audacious. Yet on the whole Irving was
pleased because he had at least asserted himself—and had rather enjoyed
doing it. And an hour later it seemed to him that he had lost all that
he had gained.

Roast beef was the unvarying dish at Sunday dinner; a large and fragrant
sirloin was set before the head of each table to be carved. Irving took
up the carving knife and fork with some misgivings. Hitherto he had had
nothing more difficult to deal with than steaks or chops or croquettes
or stews; and carving was an art that he had never learned; confronted
by the necessity, he was amazed to find that he had so little idea of
how to proceed. The first three slices came off readily enough, though
they were somewhat ragged, and Irving was aware that Westby was
surveying his operations with a critical interest. The knife seemed to
grow more dull, the meat more wobbly, more tough, the bone got more and
more in the way; the maid who was passing the vegetables was waiting,
all the boys except the three who had been helped first were waiting,
coldly critical, anxiously apprehensive; silence at this table had begun
to reign.

Irving felt himself blushing and muttered, “This knife’s awfully dull,”
as he sawed away. At last he hacked off an unsightly slab and passed it
to Westby, whose turn it was and who wrinkled his nose at it in
disfavor.

“Please have this knife sharpened,” Irving said to the maid. She put
down the potatoes and the corn, and departed with the instrument to the
kitchen.

Irving glanced at the other tables; everybody seemed to have been
served, everybody was eating; Scarborough, who was in charge of the next
table, had entirely demolished his roast.

“I’m sorry to keep you fellows waiting,” Irving said, “but that’s the
dullest knife I ever handled.”

He addressed the remark to the totally unprovided side of his table; he
turned his head just in time to catch Westby’s humorous mouth and droll
droop of an eyelid. The other boys smiled, and Irving’s cheeks grew more
hot.

“You’ll excuse me, Mr. Upton, if I don’t wait, won’t you?” said Westby.
“Don’t get impatient, fellows.”

The maid returned with the carving knife; Westby paused in his eating to
observe. Irving made another unsuccessful effort; the meat quivered and
shook and slid under his attack, and the knife slipped and clashed down
upon the platter.

“Perhaps if you would stand up to it, sir, you would do better,”
suggested Westby, in an insidious voice. “Nobody else does, but if it
would be easier—”

“Thank you, but the suggestion is unnecessary,” Irving retorted. He
added to the other boys, while he struggled, “It’s the meat, I guess,
not the knife, after all—”

“Why, I shouldn’t say it was the meat,” interposed Westby. “The meat’s
quite tender.”

Irving glanced at him in silent fury, clamped his lips together, and
went on sawing. He finally was able to hand to Carroll a plate on which
reposed a mussy-looking heap of beef. Carroll wrinkled his nose over it
as Westby had done.

“If I might venture to suggest, sir,” said Westby politely, “you could
send it out and have it carved in the kitchen.”

Irving surrendered; he looked up and said to the maid,—

“Please take this out and have it carved outside.”

He felt that he could almost cry from the humiliation, but instead he
tried to assume cheerfulness and dignity.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have to keep you fellows waiting; we’ll try to
arrange things so that it won’t happen again.”

The boys accepted the apology in gloomy silence. At Scarborough’s table
their plight was exciting comment; Irving was aware of the curious
glances which had been occasioned by the withdrawal of the roast. It
seemed to him that he was publicly disgraced; there was a peculiar
ignominy in sitting at the head of a table and being unable to perform
the simplest duty of host. Worst of all, in the encounter with Westby he
had lost ground.

The meat was brought on again, sliced in a manner which could not
conceal the unskillfulness of the original attack.

“Stone cold!” exclaimed Blake, the first boy to test it.

Irving’s temper flew up. “Don’t be childish,” he said. “And don’t make
any more comments about this matter. It’s of no importance—and cold
roast beef is just as good for you as hot.”

“If not a great deal better,” added Westby with an urbanity that set
every one snickering.

After dinner Irving was again on duty for two hours in the dormitory,
until the time for afternoon chapel. During part of this period the boys
were expected to be in their rooms, preparing the Bible lesson which had
to be recited after chapel to the rector. Irving made the rounds and
saw that each boy was in his proper quarters, then went to his own room.
For an hour he enjoyed quiet. Then the bell rang announcing that the
study period was at an end. Instantly there was a commotion in the
corridors—legitimate enough; but soon it centred in the north wing and
grew more and more clamorous, more and more mirthful.

With a sigh Irving went forth to quell it. He determined that whatever
happened he would not this time lose his temper; he would try to be
persuasive and yet firm.

The noise was in Allison’s room; the unfortunate Allison was again being
persecuted. Loud whoops of laughter and the sound of vigorous scuffling,
of tumbling chairs and pounding feet, came to Irving’s ears. The door to
Allison’s room was wide open; Irving stood and looked upon a pile of
bodies heaped on the bed, with struggling arms and legs; even in that
moment the foot of the iron bedstead collapsed, and the pile rolled off
upon the floor. There were Morrill and Carroll and Westby and Dennison
and at the bottom Allison—all looking very much rumpled, very red.

“Oh, come, fellows!” said Irving in what he intended to make an
appealing voice. “Less noise, less noise—or I shall really have to
report you—I shall really!”

But he did not speak with any confidence; his manner was hesitating,
almost deprecating. The boys grinned at him and then sauntered, rather
indifferently, out of the room.

There was no more disorder that day. But some hours later, when Irving
came up to the dormitory before supper, he heard laughter in the west
wing, where Collingwood and Westby and Scarborough had their rooms. Then
he heard Westby’s voice, raised in an effeminate, pleading tone: “Less
noise, fellows, less noise—or I shall have to report you—I shall
really!”

There was more laughter at the mimicry, and Irving heard Collingwood
ask,

“Where did you get that, Wes?”

“Oh, from Kiddy—this afternoon.”

“Poor Kiddy! He seemed to be having an awful time at noon over that
roast beef.”

“He’s such a dodo—he’s more fun than a goat. I can put him up in the air
whenever I want to,” boasted Westby. “He’s the easiest to get rattled I
ever saw. I’m going to play horse with him in class to-morrow.”

“How?” asked Collingwood; and Irving basely pricked up his ears.

“Oh, you’ll see.”

Irving closed the door of his room quietly. “We’ll see, will we?” he
muttered, pacing back and forth. “Yes, I guess some one will see.”




CHAPTER IV

THE BAITING OF A MASTER


The room in which the Sixth Form assembled for the lesson in Geometry
was on the top floor of the Study building; the windows overlooked the
pond behind the Gymnasium. The teacher’s desk was on a platform in the
corner; a blackboard extended along two walls; and there were steps
beneath the blackboard on which the students stood to make their
demonstrations.

Irving arrived a minute before the hour and found his class already
assembled—a suspicious circumstance. There was, too, he felt, an air of
subdued, joyous expectancy. He took his seat and, adjusting his
spectacles, peered round the room; his eyesight was very bad, and he
had, moreover, like so many bookworms, never trained his faculty of
observation.

He read the roll of the class; every boy was there.

“Scarborough, you may go to the blackboard and demonstrate the Fifth
Theorem; Dennison, you the Sixth; Westby, you the Eighth. The rest of
you will solve at your seats this problem.”

He mounted to the blackboard himself and wrote out the question. While
he had his back turned, he heard some whispering; he looked over his
shoulder. Westby was lingering in his seat and had obviously been
holding communication with his neighbor.

“Westby,”—Irving’s voice was sharp,—“were you trying to get help at the
last moment?”

“I was not.” Westby’s answer was prompt.

“Then don’t delay any longer, please; go to the blackboard at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Westby moved to the blackboard on the side of the room—the one at right
angles to that on which Irving and Scarborough were at work.

Irving finished his writing, dusted the chalk from his fingers, and
returned to his seat. The boys before him were now bent industriously
over their tablets; Scarborough, Westby, and Dennison were drawing
figures on the blackboard, using the long pointers for rulers and making
beautiful circles by means of chalk attached to pieces of string. A
glance at Westby showed that youth apparently intent upon solving the
problem assigned him and at work upon it intelligently. Irving began to
feel serene; he proceeded to correct the algebra exercises of the Fourth
Form, which he had received the hour before.

A sudden titter from some one down in front, hastily suppressed and
transformed into a cough, caused him to look up. Morrill, with his mouth
hidden behind his hand, was glancing off toward Westby, and Irving
followed the direction of the glance.

Westby had completed his geometrical figures and was now engaged in
labeling them with letters. But instead of employing the usual
geometrical symbols A, B, C, and so on, he was skipping about through
the alphabet, and Irving immediately perceived that he was not choosing
letters at random. Irving observed that the initials of his own name, I,
C, U, formed, as it were, the corner-stone of the geometrical edifice.

At that moment Westby coughed—an unnatural cough. And instantly a
miracle happened; every single wooden eraser—there were half a dozen of
them—leaped from its place on the shelf beneath the blackboard and
tumbled clattering down the steps to the floor. At the same instant
Westby flung up both arms, tottered on the topmost step, and succeeded
in regaining his poise with apparently great difficulty.

The class giggled.

“Mr. Upton, sir! Mr. Upton, sir!” cried Westby excitedly. “Did you feel
the earthquake? It was very noticeable on this side of the room. Do you
think it’s safe for us to stay indoors, sir? There may be another
shock!”

“Westby,” Irving’s voice had a nervous thrill that for the moment
quieted the laughter, “did you cause those erasers to be pulled down?”

“Did I cause them to be pulled down? I don’t understand, sir. How could
I, sir? Six of them all at once!”

“Bring me one of those erasers, please.”

Westby stooped; there was a sound of snapping string. Then he came
forward and presented the eraser.

“You tied string to all these erasers, did you?” Irving examined the
fragment that still clung to the object. “And then arranged to have them
pulled down?”

“You see how short that string is, sir; nobody could have reached it to
pull it. Didn’t you feel the earthquake, sir? Didn’t you see how it
almost threw me off my feet? Really, I don’t believe it’s quite safe to
stay here—”

“You may be right; I shouldn’t wonder at all if there was a second shock
coming to you soon,” said Irving, and the subdued chuckle that went
round the class told him he had scored. “You may now demonstrate to the
class the Theorem assigned you.”

“Yes, sir.” Westby turned and took up the pointer.

“We have here,” he began, “the two triangles I C U and J A Y—with the
angle I C U of the one equal to the angle J A Y of the other.” The class
tittered; Westby went on glibly, bending the lath-like pointer between
his hands: “Let us now erect the angle K I D, equal to the angle I C U;
then the angle K I D will also be equal to the angle J A Y—things equal
to the same thing are equal to each other.”

Westby stopped to turn a surprised, questioning look upon the snickering
class.

“Yes, that will do for that demonstration,” said Irving. He rose from
his seat; his lips were trembling, and the laughter of the class ceased.
“You may leave the room—for your insolence—at once!”

He had meant to be dignified and calm, but his anger had rushed to the
surface, and his words came in a voice that suggested he was on the
verge of tears.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t think I quite understand,” said
Westby suavely.

“You understand well enough. I ask you to leave the room.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Upton, that my little pleasantries—usually considered
harmless—do not commend themselves to you. But you hurt my feelings very
much, sir, when you apply such a harsh word as insolence to my whimsical
humor—”

“I’ll hold no argument with you,” cried Irving; in his excitement his
voice rose thin and thrill. “Leave the room at once.”

Westby laid the pointer and the chalk on the shelf, blew the dust from
his fingers, and walked towards his seat. Irving took a step forward;
his face was white.

“What do you mean!—What do you mean! I told you to leave the room.”

Westby faced him with composure through which showed a sneer; for the
first time the boy was displaying contempt; hitherto his attitude had
been jocose and cajoling.

“I was going for my cap,” he said, and his eyes flashed scornfully.
Then, regardless of the master’s look, he continued past the row of his
classmates, took up his cap, and retraced his steps towards the door.
Irving stood watching him, with lips compressed in a stern line; the
line thinned even more when he saw Westby bestow on his friends a droll,
drooping wink of the left eyelid.

And then, while all the class sat in silence, Westby did an audacious
thing—a thing that set every one except Irving off into a joyous titter.
He went out of the door doing the sailor’s hornpipe,—right hand on
stomach, left hand on back, left hand on stomach, right hand on back,
and taking little skips as he alternated the position. And so, skipping
merrily, he disappeared down the corridor.

Irving returned to his platform. His hands were trembling, and he felt
weak. When he spoke, he hardly knew his own voice. But he struggled to
control it, and said,—

“Scarborough, please go to the board and demonstrate your theorem.”

There was no more disorder in class that day; in fact, after Westby’s
disappearance the boys were exceptionally well behaved. Slowly Irving
recovered his composure, yet the ordeal left him feeling as if he wanted
to shut himself up in his room and lie down. He knew that he had lost
command of his temper; he regretted the manner in which he had stormed
at Westby; but he thought nevertheless that the treatment had been
effective and therefore not entirely to be deplored. The boys had
thought him soft; he had shown them that he was not; and he determined
that from this time forth he would bear down upon them hard. If by
showing them amiability and kindliness he had failed to win their
respect, he would now compel it by ferocity. He would henceforth show no
quarter to any malefactor.

Walking up to his room, he fell in with Barclay, who was also returning
from a class.

“What is the extreme penalty one can inflict on a boy who misbehaves?”
he asked.

“For a single act?” asked Barclay.

“For one that’s a climax of others—insolence, disobedience, disorder—all
heaped into one.”

Irving spoke hotly, and Barclay glanced at him with a sympathetic
interest.

“Well,” said Barclay, “three sheets and six marks off in decorum is
about the limit. After that happens to a boy two or three times, the
rector is likely to take a hand.—If you don’t mind my saying it,
though—in my opinion it’s a mistake to start in by being extreme.”

“In ordinary cases, perhaps.” Irving’s tone did not invite questioning,
and he did not confide to Barclay what extraordinary case he had under
consideration.

When he reached his room, he wrote out on a slip of paper, “Westby,
insolence and disorder in class, three sheets,” and laid the paper on
his desk. Then he undertook to correct the exercises in geometry which
had been the fruit of the Sixth Form’s labors in the last hour; but
after going through five or six of them, his mind wandered; it reverted
uneasily to the thought of his future relations with those boys. He rose
and paced about the room, and hardened his heart. He would be just as
strict and stern and severe with them all as he possibly could be. When
he had them well trained, he might attempt to win their liking—if that
seemed any longer worth having! It did not seem so to him now; all he
wanted to know now was that he had awakened in them respect and fear.

Respect and fear—could he have inspired those, by his excitable
shriekings in the class room, by his lack of self-control in dormitory
and at the dinner table, by his incompetence when confronted with a
roast of beef! Each incident that recurred to him was of a kind to bring
with it the sting of mortification; his cheeks tingled. He must at least
learn how to perform the simple duties expected of a master; he could
not afford to continue giving exhibitions of ignorance and incompetence.

Moved by this impulse, he descended to the kitchen—precincts which he
had never before entered and in which his appearance created at first
some consternation. The cook, however, was obliging; and when he had
confessed himself the incapable one who had sent out the mutilated beef
to be carved, she was most reassuring in her speech, and taking the cold
remains of a similar cut from the ice chest, she gave him an object
lesson. She demonstrated to him how he should begin the attack, how he
might foil the bone that existed only to baffle, how slice after slice
might fall beneath his sure and rapid slashes.

“I see,” said Irving, taking the knife and fork from her and making some
imaginary passes. “The fork so—the knife so. And you will always be sure
to have a sharp carving knife for me—very sharp?”

The cook smiled and promised, and he extravagantly left her
contemplating a dollar bill.

Shortly after he had returned to his room the bell on the Study building
rang, announcing the end of the morning session. There was half an hour
before luncheon; soon the boys came tramping up the stairs and past
Irving’s closed door. Soon also a racketing began in the corridors;
Irving suspected an intention to bait him still further; it was
probably Westby once again. He waited until the noise became too great
to be ignored—shouting and battering and scuffling; then he went forth
to quell it.

To his surprise Westby was not engaged in the disturbance—was, in fact,
not visible. Collingwood, with his back turned, was in the act of
hurling a football to the farther end of the corridor, where Scarborough
and Morrill and Dennison were gathered. The forward pass was new in
football this year, and although the playing season had not yet begun,
Irving had already seen fellows practicing for it, in front of the Study
and behind the dormitory. Collingwood, he knew, was captain of the
school football eleven, and naturally had all the latest developments of
the game, such as the forward pass, very much on his mind. Still that
was no excuse for playing football in the corridor.

Morrill had caught the ball, and as Irving approached, undertook to
return it. But it ricochetted against the wall and bounced down at
Collingwood’s feet. Collingwood seized it and was poising it in his hand
for another throw when Irving spoke behind him—sharply, for he was
mindful of his resolve to be severe:—

“No more of that, Collingwood.”

The boy turned eagerly and said,—

“Oh, Mr. Upton, I’m just getting on to how to do it. Here, let me show
you. You take it this way, along the lacings—the trouble is, my hand’s
not quite long enough to get a good grip—and then you take it like
this—”

“Yes,” said Irving coldly; he had an idea that Collingwood had adopted
Westby’s method and was engaged in chaffing him. “You needn’t show me.”

And he turned abruptly and went into his room, closing the door behind
him.

Collingwood stood, looking round over his shoulder after Irving and
holding the ball out in the arrested attitude of one about to throw. On
his face was an expression of utter amazement, which rapidly gave place
to indignation. Collingwood had a temper, and sometimes—even when he
was not on the football field—it flared up.

“Of all the chumps!” he muttered; and he turned, and poising the ball
again, flung it with all his strength at the master’s door. It went
straight to the mark, crashed against the upper panel with a tremendous
bang, and rebounded to Collingwood’s feet.

Irving opened the door and came out with a leap.

“Collingwood,” he cried, and his voice was quivering as it had quivered
that morning in class, “did you throw that ball?”

“I did,” said Collingwood.

“Very well. I shall report you. I will have no more of this insolence.”

He swung round and shut himself again in his room. The fellows at the
other end of the corridor had stood aghast; now they came hurrying up.
Collingwood was laughing.

“Kiddy’s getting to be a regular lion,” he said, and when Morrill and
Dennison were for expressing their indignation, he only laughed the
more.

It was not very pleasant for Irving at luncheon. Westby gave him an
amused glance when he came in—more amused than hostile—and Irving
preserved his dignity by returning an unflinching look. Westby made no
further overtures for a while; the other boys chattered among
themselves, about football and tennis, and Irving sat silent at the head
of the table. At last, however, Westby turned to him.

“Mr. Upton,” said Westby deferentially, “how would you explain this?
There’s a dog, and he must be doing one of two things; either he’s
running or he’s not running. If he’s not doing the one, he is doing the
other, isn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” said Irving.

“Well, he’s not running. Therefore—he is running. How do you explain
that, Mr. Upton?”

Irving smiled feebly; the other boys were thinking it over with puzzled
faces.

“That’s an old quibble,” said Irving. “The alternative for running is
not running. Therefore when he’s not running—he’s _not_ running.”

“I don’t see that that explains it,” answered Westby. “That’s just
making a statement—but it isn’t logic.”

“He’s not running is the negative of he’s running; he’s not not-running
is the negative of he’s not running—”

“Then,” said Westby, “how fast must a dog travel that is not not-running
to catch a dog that is not exactly running but only perhaps?”

The boys laughed; Irving retorted, “That’s a problem that you might work
out on the blackboard sometime.”

Thereupon Westby became silent, and Irving more than half repented of
his speech; he knew that in its reference it had been ill-natured.

He noticed later in the day when he went up to the dormitory that the
boys tiptoed about the corridors and conversed in whispers; there was an
extravagant air of quiet. When they went down to supper, they tiptoed
past Irving’s room in single file, saying in unison, “Sh! Sh! Sh!” They
all joined in this procession—from Collingwood to Allison. Irving felt
that he had taken Allison’s place as the laughing-stock, the butt of the
dormitory.

In the evening they came to bid him good-night—not straggling up as they
usually did, but in a delegation, expectant and amused. Westby and
Collingwood were in the van when Irving opened his door in response to
the knock.

“We didn’t know whether you’d shake hands with two such reprobates or
not,” said Westby. “We thought it wasn’t quite safe to come up alone—so
we’ve brought a bodyguard.”

Irving did not smile, though, all the boys were grinning. He shook hands
formally with Collingwood, then with Westby, then with the others,
saying good-night to each; as they left him, they tiptoed to their
rooms. He thought grimly that, whatever might be the sentiments
entertained towards him, he would not long be living in an atmosphere of
ridicule.

Irving had charge of the “big study,” as it was called, during the hour
immediately after morning chapel. The boys filed in from chapel and
seated themselves at their desks; the members of the Sixth Form, who
were privileged to study in their rooms and therefore had no desks in
the schoolroom, occupied the stalls along the wall under the big clock.
Last of all the rector entered and, mounting the platform, read the
“reports” for the day—that is, the names of those who had transgressed
and the penalties imposed. After the reading, the Sixth Form went
upstairs to their Latin class with Mr. Barclay, and the day’s work
began.

On the morning following his encounters with Westby and with
Collingwood, Irving as usual took charge of the Study. The boys
assembled; Irving rang the bell, reducing them to quiet; Dr. Davenport
came in, mounted the platform, and took up the report book—in which
Irving had just finished transcribing his entries.

Dr. Davenport began reading in his clear, emphatic voice, “Out of
bounds, Mason, Sterrett, Coyle, one sheet; late to study, Hart,
McQuiston, Durfee, Stratton, Kane, half a sheet; tardy to breakfast—”
and so on. None of the offenses were very serious; and the rector read
them out rapidly. But at last he paused a moment; and then, looking up
from the book, he said, with grave distinctness, “Disorderly in class
and insolent, Westby, three sheets; disorderly in dormitory and
insolent, Collingwood, three sheets.”

He closed the book; a stir, a thrill of interest, ran round the room.
For a Sixth Former to be charged with such offenses and condemned to
such punishment was rare: for Collingwood, who was in a sense the leader
of the school, to be so charged and punished was unprecedented.

Collingwood, sitting directly under the clock, and facing so many
curious questioning eyes, turned red; Westby, standing by the door,
looked at him and smiled. At the same time, Dr. Davenport, closing the
report-book, leaned towards Irving and said quietly in his ear,—

“Mr. Upton, I should like to see you about those last two
reports—immediately after this study hour.”

Irving reddened; the rector’s manner was not approving.

Dr. Davenport descended from the platform and walked slowly down the
aisle. As he approached, he looked straight at Westby; and Westby
returned the look steadily—as if he was ashamed of nothing.

The rector passed through the doorway; the Sixth Form followed; the
day’s work began.




CHAPTER V

MASTER TURNS PUPIL


The rector received Irving with a smile. “Well,” he said, “I think you
must be a believer in the maxim, ‘Hit hard and hit first.’ Would you
mind telling me what was the trouble?”

“It wasn’t so much any one thing,” replied Irving. “It was a culmination
of little things.—Oh, I suppose I started in wrong with the fellows
somehow.”

He was silent for a moment, in dejection.

“A good many do that,” said Dr. Davenport. “There would be small
progress in the world if there never was any rectifying of false
starts.”

“I can hardly help it if I look young,” said Irving. “That’s one of my
troubles. I suppose I ought to avoid acting young. I haven’t,
altogether. They call me Kiddy.”

“We get hardened to nicknames,” observed the rector. “But often they’re
affectionate. At least I like to cherish that delusion with regard to
mine; my legs have the same curve as Napoleon’s, and I have been known
as ‘Old Hoopo’ for years.”

“But they don’t call you that to your face.”

“No, not exactly. Have they been calling you ‘Kiddy’ to your face?”

“It amounts to that.” Irving narrated the remarks that he had overheard
in dormitory, and then described Westby’s performance at the blackboard.

“That certainly deserved rebuke,” agreed the rector. “Though I think
Westby was attempting to be facetious rather than insolent; I have never
seen anything to indicate that he was a malicious boy.—What was it that
Louis Collingwood did?”

Irving recited the offense.

“Weren’t you a little hasty in assuming that he was trying to tease
you?” asked the rector. “When he persisted in wanting to show you how
the forward pass is made? I think it’s quite likely he was sincere; he’s
so enthusiastic over football that it doesn’t occur to him that others
may not share his interest. I don’t think Collingwood was trying to be
‘fresh.’ Of course, he shouldn’t have lost his temper and banged the
ball at your door—but I think that hardly showed malice.”

“It seemed to me it was insolent—and disorderly. I felt the fellows all
thought they could do anything with me and I would be afraid to report
them. And so I thought I’d show them I wasn’t afraid.”

“At the same time, three sheets is the heaviest punishment, short of
actual suspension, that we inflict. It seems hardly a penalty for
heedless or misguided jocularity.”

“I think perhaps I was hard on Collingwood,” admitted Irving.

“If he comes to you about it—maybe you’ll feel disposed to modify the
punishment. And possibly the same with Westby.”

“I don’t feel sure that I’ve been too hard on Westby.”

The rector smiled; he was not displeased at this trace of stubbornness.

“Well, I won’t advise you any further about that. Use your own judgment.
It takes time for a young man to get his bearings in a place like
this.—If you don’t mind my saying it,” added the rector mildly,
“couldn’t you be a little more objective in your interests?”

“You mean,” said Irving, “less—less self-centred?”

“That’s it.” The rector smiled.

“I’ll try,” said Irving humbly.

“All right; good luck.” The rector shook hands with him and turned to
his desk.

There was no disturbance in the Mathematics class that day. Irving hoped
that after the hour Westby and Collingwood might approach him to discuss
the justice of the reports which he had given them, and so offer him an
opportunity of lightening the punishment. But in this he was
disappointed. Nor did they come to him in the noon recess—the usual time
for boys who felt themselves wronged to seek out the masters who had
wronged them.

Irving debated with himself the advisability of going to the two boys
and voluntarily remitting part of their task. But he decided against
this; to make the advances and the concession both would be to concede
too much.

At luncheon there was an unpleasant moment. No sooner had the boys sat
down than Blake, a Fifth Former, called across the table to Westby,—

“Say, Westby, who was it that gave you three sheets?”

Westby scowled and replied,—

“Mr. Upton.”

“What for?”

“Oh, ask him.”

Irving reddened, aware of the glancing, curious gaze of every boy at the
table. There was an interesting silence, relieved at last by the
appearance of the boy with the mail. Among the letters, Irving found one
from Lawrence; he opened it with a sense that it afforded him a
momentary refuge. The unintended irony of the first words drew a bitter
smile to his lips.

“You are certainly a star teacher,” Lawrence wrote, “and I know now what
a success you must be making with your new job. I have just learned that
I passed all the examinations—which is more than you or I ever dreamed I
could do—so I am now a freshman at Harvard without conditions. And it’s
all due to you; I don’t believe there’s another man on earth that could
have got me through with such a record and in so short a time.”

Irving forgot the irony, forgot Westby and Collingwood and the amused,
whispering boys. Happiness had suddenly flashed down and caught him up
and borne him away to his brother. Lawrence’s whole letter was so gay,
so exultant, so grateful that Irving, when he finished it, turned back
again to the first page. When at last he raised his eyes from it, they
dwelt unseeingly upon the boys before him; they held his brother’s
image, his brother’s smile. And from the vision he knew that there at
least he had justified himself, whatever might be his failure now; and
if he had succeeded once, he could succeed again.

Irving became aware that Westby was treating him with cheerful
indifference—ignoring him. He did not care; the letter had put into him
new courage. And pretty soon there woke in him along with this courage a
gentler spirit; it was all very well for Westby, a boy and therefore
under discipline, to exhibit a stiff and haughty pride; but it was
hardly admirable that a master should maintain that attitude. The
punishment to which he had sentenced Westby and Collingwood was, it
appeared, too harsh; if they were so proud that they would not appeal to
him to modify it, he would make a sacrifice in the interest of justice.

So after luncheon he followed Westby and spoke to him outside of the
dining-room.

“Westby,” he said, “do you think that considering the circumstances
three sheets is excessive?”

Westby looked surprised; then he shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not asking any favors,” he replied.

Irving laughed. “No,” he said, “I see you’re not. But I’m afraid I must
deny you the pleasure of martyrdom. I’ll ask you to take a note to Mr.
Elwood—he’s in charge of the Study, isn’t he? I’ll tell him that you’re
to write a sheet and a half instead of three sheets.”

He drew a note-book from his pocket and tore out one of the pages.
Westby looked at him curiously—as if in an effort to determine just how
poor-spirited this sudden surrender was. Irving spoke again before
writing.

“By the way, will you please ask Collingwood to come here?”

When Westby returned with Collingwood, Irving had the note written and
handed it to him; there was no excuse for Westby to linger. He went over
and waited by the door, while Irving said,—

“Collingwood, why didn’t you come up and ask me to reduce your report?
Didn’t you think it was unfair?”

“Yes,” Collingwood answered promptly.

“Well, then—why didn’t you come to me and say so?”

Collingwood thought a moment.

“Well,” he said, “you had such fun in soaking me that I wasn’t going to
give you the additional satisfaction of seeing me cry baby.”

“I’ll learn something about boys sometime—if you fellows will keep on
educating me,” observed Irving. “I think your performance of yesterday
deserves about a sheet; we’ll make it that.”

He scribbled a note and handed it to the boy.

“Thank you, Mr. Upton.” Collingwood tucked the note into his pocket with
a friendly smile, and then joined Westby.

“Knock you down to half a sheet?” asked Westby, as they departed in the
direction of the Study, where they were to perform their tasks.

“No; a sheet.”

“Mine’s one and a half now. What got into him?”

“He’s not without sense,” said Collingwood.

“Ho!” Westby was derisive. “He’s soft. He got scared. He knew he’d gone
too far—and he was afraid to stand by his guns.”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s just trying to do the right thing.”

It was unfortunate for Irving that later in the afternoon Carter of the
Fifth Form—who played in the banjo club with Westby—was passing the
Study building just as Westby was coming out from his confinement.

“Hello, Wes!” said Carter. “Thought you were in for three sheets; how do
you happen to be at large so soon?”

“Kiddy made it one and a half—without my asking him,” said Westby.

“And Collingwood the same?”

“He made his only a sheet.”

“That’s it,” said Carter shrewdly. “I was waiting to see the rector this
morning; the door was open, and he had Kiddy in there with him. I guess
he was lecturing him on those reports; I guess he told him he’d have to
take off a couple of sheets.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Westby. “I don’t believe old Hoopo would
have interfered much on my account,—but I guess he couldn’t stand for
Lou Collingwood getting three sheets. And Kiddy, the fox, tried to make
us think he was being magnanimous!”

Westby chuckled over his humorous discovery, and as soon as possible
imparted it to Collingwood.

“Oh, well, what if the rector did make him do it?” said Collingwood.
“The way he did it shows he’s all right—”

“Trying to get the credit with us for being just and generous!” observed
Westby. “Oh, I don’t mind; of course it’s only Kiddy.”

And it was Westby’s view of the matter which most of the boys heard and
credited. So the improvement in the general attitude for which Irving
had hoped was hardly to be noticed. He had some gratification the next
Sunday when the roast beef was brought on and he carved it with
creditable ease and dispatch; the astonishment of the whole table, and
especially of Westby and Carroll, was almost as good as applause. He
could not resist saying, in a casual way, “The knife seems to be sharp
this Sunday.” And he felt that for once Westby was nonplussed.

But the days passed, and Irving felt that he was not getting any nearer
to the boys. At his table the talk went on before him, mainly about
athletics, about college life, about Europe and automobiles,—all topics
from which he seemed strangely remote. It needed only the talk of these
experienced youths to make him realize that he had gone through college
without ever touching “college life,”—its sports, its social diversions,
its adventures. It had been for him a life in a library, in classrooms,
in his own one shabby little room,—a cloistered life; in the hard work
of it and the successful winning of his way he had been generally
contented and happy. But he could not talk to these boys about “college
life” as it appeared to them; and they very soon, perhaps by common
consent, eliminated him from the conversation. Nor was he able to cope
with Westby in the swift, glancing monologues which flowed on and on
sometimes, to the vast amusement of the audience. Often to Irving these
seemed not very funny, and he did not know which was the more trying—to
sit grave and unconcerned in the midst of so much mirth or to keep his
mouth stretched in an insincere, wooden smile. Whichever he did, he felt
that Westby always was taking notes, to ridicule him afterwards to the
other boys.

One habit which Westby had was that of bringing a newspaper to supper
and taking the table with him in an excursion over headlines and
advertising columns. His mumbling manner, his expertness in bringing out
distinctly a ridiculous or incongruous sentence, and his skill in
selecting such sentences at a glance always drew attention and applause;
he had the comedian’s technique.

The boys at the neighboring tables, hearing so much laughter and seeing
that Westby was provoking it, would stop eating and twist round and tilt
back their chairs and strain their ears eagerly for some fragment of the
fun. At last at the head table Mr. Randolph took cognizance of this
daily boisterousness, spoke to Irving about it, and asked him to curb
it. Irving thereupon suggested to Westby that he refrain from reading
his newspaper at table.

“But all the fellows depend on me to keep them _au courant_, as it
were.” Westby was fond of dropping into French in his arguments with
Irving.

“You will have to choose some other time for it,” Irving answered. “I
understand that there is a rule against reading newspapers at table, and
I think it must be observed.”

“Oh, very well,—_de bon cœur_,” said Westby.

The next day at supper he appeared without his newspaper. But in the
course of the meal he drew from his pocket some newspaper clippings
which he had pasted together and which he began to read in his usual
manner. Soon the boys of the table were laughing, soon the boys of the
adjacent tables were twisting round and trying to share in the
amusement. Westby read in his rapid consecutive way,—

“‘Does no good unless taken as directed—pain in the back, loins, or
region of the kidneys—danger signal nature hangs out—um—um—um. Mother
attacks son with razor, taking tip of left ear. Catcher Dan McQuilligan
signs with the Red Sox—The Woman Beautiful—Bright Eyes: Every woman is
entitled to a clear, brilliant complexion—um—if she is not so blessed,
it is usually her own fault—um—Candidate for pulchritude: reliable
beauty shop—do not clip the eyelashes—um.—Domestic science column—Baked
quail: pick, draw, and wipe the bird outside and inside; use a wet
cloth.—No, Hortense, it is not necessary to offer a young man
refreshments during an evening call.’”

Westby was going on and on; he had a hilarious audience now of three
tables. From the platform at the end of the dining-room Mr. Randolph
looked down and shook his head—shook it emphatically; and Irving, seeing
it, understood the signal.

“Westby,” said Irving. “Westby!” He had to raise his voice.

“Yes, sir?” Westby looked up innocently.

“I will have to ask you to discontinue your reading.”

“But this is not a newspaper.”

“It’s part of one.”

“Yes, sir, but the rule is against bringing newspapers to table—not
against bringing newspaper clippings to table.”

“The rule’s been changed,” said Irving. “It now includes clippings.”

“You see how it is, fellows.” Westby turned to the others.
“Persecuted—always persecuted. If I’m within the rules—they change the
rules to soak me. Well,”—he folded up his clippings and put them in his
pocket,—“the class in current topics is dismissed. But instead Mr. Upton
has very kindly consented to entertain us this evening—some of his
inimitable chit-chat—”

“I wouldn’t always try to be facetious, Westby,” said Irving.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied Westby urbanely. “If I have wounded
your sensibilities—I would not do that—never—_jamais—pas du tout_.”

Irving said nothing; it seemed to him that Westby always had the last
word; it seemed to him as if Westby was always skillfully tripping him
up, executing a derisive flourish over his prostrate form, and then
prancing away to the cheers of the populace.

But there were no more violent encounters, such as had taken place in
the class-room; Westby never quite crossed the line again; and Irving
controlled his temper on threatening occasions. These occurred in
dormitory less often; the fine weather and the fall sports—football and
tennis and track athletics—kept the boys out-doors. On rainy afternoons
there was apt to be some noise and disorder—usually there was what was
termed an “Allison hunt,” which took various forms, but which, whether
resulting in the dismemberment of the boy’s room or the pursuit and
battery of him with pillows along the corridors, invariably required
Irving’s interference to quell it. This task of interference, though it
was one that he came to perform more and more capably, never grew less
distasteful or less humiliating; he saw always the row of faces wearing
what he construed as an impudent grin. What seemed to him curious was
the fact that Allison after a fashion enjoyed—at least did not
resent—the outrages of which he was the subject; after them he would be
found sitting amicably with his tormentors, drinking their chocolate and
eating their crackers and jam. This was so different from his own
attitude after he had been teased that Irving could not understand it.
After studying the case, he concluded that the “Allison hunts” were not
prompted by any hatred of the subject, but by the fact merely that he
was big, clumsy, good-natured, slow-witted—easy to make game of—and
especially by the fact that when aroused he showed a certain joyous rage
in his own defense. But Irving saw no way of learning a lesson from
Allison.

As the days went on, the sense of his isolation in the School became
more oppressive. He had thought that if only the fellows would let him
alone, he would be contented; he found that was not so. They let him
alone now entirely; he envied those masters who were popular—whom boys
liked to visit on Sunday evenings, who were consulted about
contributions to the _Mirror_, the school paper, who were invited to
meetings of the Stylus, the literary society, who coached the football
elevens or went into the Gymnasium and did “stunts” with the boys on the
flying rings.

One day when he was walking down to the athletic field with Mr. Barclay,
he said something that hinted his wistful and unhappy state of mind.
Barclay had suspected it and had been waiting for such an opportunity.

“Why don’t you make some interest for yourself which would put you on a
footing with the boys—outside of the class-room and the dormitory?” he
asked.

“I wish I could. But how?”

“You ought to be able to work up an interest of some sort,” said Barclay
vaguely.

“I don’t know anything about athletics; I’m not musical, I don’t seem to
be able to be entertaining and talk to the boys. I guess I’m just a
grind. I shall never be of much use as a teacher; it’s bad enough to
feel that you’re not up to your job. It’s worse when it makes you feel
that you’re even less up to the job that you hoped to prepare for.”

“How’s that?”

“I meant to study law; I’d like to be a lawyer. But what’s the use? If I
can’t learn to handle boys, how can I ever hope to handle men?—and
that’s what a lawyer has to do, I suppose.”

“Look here,” said Barclay. “You’re still young; if you’ve learned what’s
the matter with you—and you seem to have—you’ve learned more than most
fellows of your age. It’s less than a month that you’ve been here, and
you’ve never had any experience before in dealing with boys. Why should
you expect to know it all at once?”

“I suppose there’s something in that. But I feel that I haven’t it in me
ever to get on with them.”

“You’re doing better now than you did at first; they don’t look on you
entirely as a joke now, do they?”

“Perhaps not.—Oh,” Irving broke out, “I know what the trouble is—I want
to be liked—and I suppose I’m not the likeable kind.”

Barclay did not at once dispute this statement, and Irving was beginning
to feel hurt.

“The point is,” said Barclay at last, “that to be liked by boys you’ve
got to like them. If you hold off from them and distrust them and try to
wrap yourself up in a cloak of dignity or mystery, they won’t like you
because they won’t know you. If you show an interest in them and their
interests, you can be as stern with them as justice demands, and they
won’t lay it up against you. But if you don’t show an interest—why, you
can’t expect them to have an interest in you.”

They turned a bend in the road; the athletic field lay spread out before
them. In different parts of it half a dozen football elevens were
engaged in practice; on the tennis courts near the athletic house boys
in white trousers and sweaters were playing; on the track encircling
the football field other boys more lightly clad were sprinting or
jogging round in practice for long-distance runs; a few sauntered about
as spectators, with hands in their overcoat pockets.

“There,” said Barclay, indicating a group of these idle observers, “you
can at least do that.”

“But what’s the use?”

“Make yourself a critic; pick out eight or ten fellows to watch
especially. In football or tennis or running. It doesn’t much matter. If
they find you’re taking an intelligent interest in what they’re doing,
they’ll be pleased. Westby, for instance, is running; he’s entered for
the hundred yards in the fall games,—likely to win it, too. Westby’s
your greatest trial, isn’t he? Then why don’t you make a point of
watching him?—Not too obviously, of course. Come round with me; I’m
coaching some of the runners for the next half-hour, and then
Collingwood wants me to give his ends a little instruction.”

“Dear me! If I’d only been an athlete instead of a student in college!”
sighed Irving whimsically.

“You don’t need to be much of an athlete to coach; I never was so very
much,” confided Barclay. “But there are things you can learn by looking
on.” They had reached the edge of the track; Barclay clapped his hands.
“No, no, Roberts!” The boy who was practising the start for a sprint
looked up. “You mustn’t reel all over the track that way when you start;
you’d make a foul. Keep your elbows in, and run straight.”

Irving followed Barclay round and tried to grasp the significance of his
comments. Dennison came by at a trot.

“Longer stride, Dennison! Your running’s choppy! Lengthen out, lengthen
out! That’s better.—I have it!”

Barclay turned suddenly to Irving.

“What?”

“The thing for you to do. We’ll make you an official at the track games
next week. That will give you a standing at once—show everybody that you
are really a keen follower of sport—or want to be.”

“But what can I do? I suppose an official has to do something.”

“You can be starter. That will put you right in touch with the fellows
that are entered.”

“Would I have a revolver? I’ve never fired a gun off in my life.”

“Then it’s time you did. Of course you’ll have a revolver. And you’ll be
the noisiest, most important man on the field. That’s what you need to
make yourself; wake the fellows up to what you really are!—Now I must be
off to my football men; you’d better hang round here and pick up what
you can about running. And remember—you’re to act as starter.”

“If you’ll see me through.”

“I’ll see you through.”

Barclay waved his hand and swung off across the field.




CHAPTER VI

THE PENALTY FOR A FOUL


How it was managed Irving did not know, but on the morning of the day
when the fall handicap track games were held Scarborough lingered after
the Sixth Form Geometry class. Scarborough was president of the Athletic
Association.

“We want somebody to act as starter for the races this afternoon, Mr.
Upton,” said Scarborough. “I wondered if you would help us out.”

“I should be delighted,” said Irving. “I’ve not had much experience—”

“Oh, it’s easy enough; Mr. Barclay, I guess, can tell you all that has
to be done. Thank you very much.”

It was quite as if Irving was the one who was conferring the favor; he
liked Scarborough for the way in which the boy had made the suggestion.
He always had liked him, for Scarborough had never given any trouble; he
seemed more mature than most of the boys, more mature even than Louis
Collingwood. He was not so popular, because he maintained a certain
dignity and reserve; even Westby seemed to stand somewhat in awe of
Scarborough. He was, as Irving understood, the best oarsman in the
school, captain of the school crew, besides being the crack shot-putter
and hammer-thrower; if he and Collingwood had together chosen to throw
their influence against a new master, life would indeed have been hard.
But Scarborough’s attitude had been one of entire indifference; he would
stand by and smile sometimes when Westby was engaged in chaffing Irving,
and then, as if tired of it, he would turn his back and walk away.

Irving visited Barclay at his house during the noon recess, borrowed his
revolver, and received the last simple instructions.

“Make sure always that they’re all properly ‘set’ before you fire. If
there’s any fouling at the start, you can call them back and penalize
the fellow that fouled—a yard to five yards, according to your
discretion. But there’s not likely to be any fouling; in most of the
events the fellows are pretty well separated by their handicaps.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Irving. He inspected the revolver. “It’s all
loaded?”

“Yes—and there are some blank cartridges. Now, you’re all equipped. If
any questions come up—I’ll be down at the field; I’m to be one of the
judges and you can call on me.”

At luncheon Irving entered into the talk about the sports to come,
without giving any intimation as to the part which he was to play.

“They’ve given Heath only thirty yards over Lou Collingwood,” complained
Westby.

“I thought Lou wasn’t going to run, because of football; he hasn’t been
practising,” said Carroll.

“I know, but the Pythians have got hold of him, and Dennison’s persuaded
him it’s his duty to run. And I guess he’s good enough without practice
to win from scratch—giving that handicap!”

“Is Dennison the captain of the Pythian track team?” asked Irving.

“Yes.”

“And who’s captain of yours—the Corinthians?”

“Ned Morrill.”

“Morrill’s going awfully fast in the quarter now,” said Blake. “I timed
him yesterday.”

“They’ve handicapped him pretty hard. And he’s apt to be just a shade
late in starting—just as Dave Pratt is apt to be just a shade previous,”
said Westby. “It ought to be a close race between those two.”

“How much does Pratt get over Morrill?”

“Five yards. And if he steals another yard on the start—”

“Dave wouldn’t steal it,” exclaimed Blake indignantly. “You Corinthians
would accuse a man of anything!”

“Oh, I don’t mean that he’d do it intentionally,” replied Westby. “But
he’s so overanxious and eager always—and he’s apt to get away without
realizing—without the starter realizing.—I wonder who’s going to be
starter, by the way?”

Nobody knew; Irving did not enlighten them.

Westby bethought him to ask the same question of Scarborough half an
hour later, when they were dressing in the athletic house.

“Mr. Upton has consented to serve,” said Scarborough gravely.

Westby thumped himself down on a bench, dangling one spiked running shoe
by the string.

“What! Kiddy!”

“The same,” said Scarborough.

Westby said nothing more; he stooped and put on his shoe, and then he
rose and came over to Scarborough, who was untangling a knot. He passed
his hand over Scarborough’s head and remarked wonderingly, “Feels
perfectly normal—strange—strange!”

Morrill came in from outside, clapping his hands. “Corinthians out for
the mile—Heath—Price—Bolton—Edwards—all ready?”

The four named answered by clumping on their spikes to the door.

A moment later came the Pythian call from Dennison; Collingwood and
Morse responded. The first event of the day was about to begin. Westby
leisurely brushed his hair, which had been disarranged in the process of
undressing; he was like a cat in respect of his hair and could not
endure to have it rumpled. When it was parted and plastered down to his
satisfaction, he slipped a dressing gown on over his running clothes and
went out of doors.

The fall track meet was not of the same importance as that in the
spring, which was a scratch event. But there were cups for prizes, and
there was always much rivalry between the two athletic clubs, the
Corinthians and Pythians, as to which could show the most winners. So
for that day the football players rested from their practice; many of
them in fact were entered in the sports—though, like Collingwood,
without any special preparation. The school turned out to look on and
cheer; when Westby left the athletic house, he saw the boys lined up on
the farther side of the track. The field was reserved for contestants
and officials; already many figures in trailing dressing gowns were
wandering over it, and off at one side three or four were having a
preliminary practice in putting the shot.

But most of those who were privileged to be on the field stood at the
farther side, where the start for the mile run was about to take place.
Westby saw Randolph and Irving kneeling by the track, measuring off the
handicap distances with a tape line; Barclay walked along it, and
summoned the different contestants to their places. By the time that
Westby had crossed the field, the six runners were at their stations;
there was an interval of a hundred and forty yards between Collingwood,
at scratch, and young Price of the Fourth Form.

Westby came up and stood near Irving, and fixed him with a whimsical
smile.

“Quite a new departure for you, isn’t it, Mr. Upton?” he said.

“I thought I’d come down and see if you can run as fast as you can talk,
Westby.” Irving drew out the revolver, somewhat ostentatiously.

“I hope you won’t shoot any one with that; it looks to me as if you
ought to be careful how you handle it, sir.”

“Thank you for the advice, Westby.” Irving turned from the humorist, and
raised his voice. “All ready for the mile now! On your marks! Set!”

He held the pistol aloft and fired, and the six runners trotted away.
There is nothing very exciting about the start of a mile run, and Irving
felt that the intensity with which he had given the commands had been
rather absurd. It was annoying to think that Westby had been standing by
and finding perhaps in his nervousness a delectable subject for mockery
and derision.

Irving walked down the track towards the finish line. He found Barclay
there holding the watch.

“You seem to be discharging your arduous duties successfully,” said
Barclay.

“Oh, so far.” Irving looked up the track; the foremost runners were
rounding the curve at the end of their first lap. He had a moment’s
longing to be one of them, stretching his legs like them, trying out his
strength and speed on the smooth cinder track against others as eager as
himself. He had never done anything of that kind; hardly until now had
he ever felt the desire. Why it should come upon him now so poignantly
he did not know; but on this warm October afternoon, when the air and
the sunshine were as soft as in early September, he wished that he might
be a boy again and do the things which as a boy he had never done. To be
still young and looking on at the sports and the strife of youth, sports
and strife in which he had never borne a part—there was something
humiliating and ignoble in the thought. If he could only be for the
moment the little Fourth Former there, Price—now flying on in the lead
yet casting many fearful backward glances!—Poor child, even Irving’s
inexperienced eyes told him that he could never keep that pace.

“Go it, kid!” cried three or four older boys good-naturedly, as Price
panted by; and he threw back his head and came down more springily upon
his toes, trying in response to the cheer to display his best form.

After him came Bolton and Edwards, side by side; and Collingwood, who
started at scratch, had moved up a little on Morse and Heath. Heath was
considered the strongest runner in the event for the Corinthians, and
they urged him on with cries of “Heath! Heath!” as he made the turn.
“You’ve got ’em, Lou!” shouted a group of Pythians the next moment as
Collingwood passed. It was early in the race for any great demonstration
of excitement.

It was Price whom Irving watched with most sympathy. When he got round
on the farther side of the field, his pace had slackened perceptibly;
Bolton and Edwards passed him and kept on widening the distance; Morse
and Heath passed him at the next turn; and when he came down to the turn
in front of the crowd, running heavily, Collingwood overhauled and
passed him. It was rather an unfeeling thing for Collingwood to do,
right there in front of the crowd, but he was driven to it by force of
circumstances; the four other runners were holding on in a way he did
not like. The cries of encouragement to him and to Heath were more
urgent this time; Bolton and Edwards and Morse had their supporters too.

Westby ran along the field beside Price, and Irving felt a moment’s
indignation; was Westby taunting the plucky and exhausted small boy? And
then Irving saw that he was not, and at the same instant Barclay turned
to him and said,—

“Price is Westby’s young cousin.”

Irving stood near enough to hear Westby say, “Good work, Tom; you set
the pace just right; it’ll kill Collingwood. Now drop out.”

Price shook his head and kept on; Westby trotted beside him, saying
anxiously, “There’s no use in your wearing yourself all out.” But Price
continued at his determined, pounding trot.

“He’s a plucky kid,” said Barclay.

“Rather nice of Westby to take such an interest,” said Irving.

Barclay nodded. From that point on it became a close and interesting
race, yet every now and then Irving’s eyes strayed to the small figure
toiling farther and farther to the rear—but always toiling. Westby stood
on the edge of the green oval, not far away, and when on the third lap
Heath came by in the lead, ran with him a few moments and shouted advice
and encouragement in his ear; he had to shout, for all the Corinthians
were shouting for Heath now, and the Pythians were shouting just as
loudly for Collingwood, who, pocketed by the two other Corinthians,
Bolton and Edwards, was running fifteen yards behind. Morse, the only
Pythian to support Collingwood, was hopelessly out of it.

Westby left Heath and turned his eyes backward. His cousin came to the
turn, white-faced, and mouth hanging open; the crowd clapped the boy.
“Quit it, Tom!” cried Westby. “Quit it; there’s no sense—” but Price
went pounding on. Westby stood looking after him with a worried frown,
and then because there was a sudden shout, he turned to look at the
others.

There, on the farther side of the field, Collingwood had at last
extricated himself from the pocket; he was running abreast of Bolton;
Edwards had fallen behind. Heath was spurting; Collingwood passed
Bolton, but in doing so did not lessen Heath’s lead—a lead of fully
fifteen yards. So they came to the last turn, to the long straight-away
home-stretch; and the crowd clustered by the finish broke and ran up
alongside the track to meet them. Every one was yelling wildly—one name
or another—“Corinthian!” “Pythian!” “Heath!” “Collingwood!”

Barclay ran across the track with one end of the tape,—the finish line;
Mr. Randolph held the other. “Collingwood! Collingwood!” rose the shout;
Irving, standing on tiptoe, saw that Collingwood was gaining, saw that
at last he and Heath were running side by side; they held together while
the crowd ran with them shouting. Irving pressed closer to the track;
Westby in his dressing gown was jumping up and down beside him, waving
his arms; Irving had to crane his neck and peer, in order to see beyond
those loose flapping sleeves. He saw the light-haired Collingwood and
the black-haired Heath, coming down with their heads back and their
teeth bared and clenched; they were only fifteen yards away. And then
Collingwood leaped ahead; it was as if he had unloosed some latent and
unconquerable spring, which hurled him in a final burst of speed across
the tape and into half a dozen welcoming arms. Heath stumbled after him,
even more in need of such friendly services; but both of them revived
very quickly when Mr. Barclay, rushing into the crowd with the watch,
cried, “Within eight seconds of the record! Both of you fellows will
break it next June.”

The other runners came gasping in—and Price was still toiling away in
the rear. He had been half a lap behind; he came now into the
home-stretch; the crowd began to laugh, and then more kindly, as he drew
nearer, to applaud. They clapped and called, “Good work, Price!” Westby
met him about fifty yards from the finish and ran with him, saying,
“You’ve got to stick it out now, Tom; you can’t drop out now; you’re all
right, old boy—lots of steam in your boiler—you’ll break a record yet.”
Irving caught some of the speeches. And so Westby was there when Price
crossed the line and collapsed in a heap on the track.

It was not for long; they brought him to with water, and Westby knelt by
him fanning his face with the skirt of his dressing gown. Barclay picked
the boy up. “Oh, I’m all right, sir,” said Price, and he insisted on
being allowed to walk to the athletic house alone,—which he did rather
shakily.

Westby flirted the cinders from the skirt of his dressing gown. “Blamed
little fool,” he remarked to Carroll and to Allison, who stood by.
“Wouldn’t his mother give me the dickens, though, for letting him do
that!” But Irving, who heard, knew there was a ring of pride in Westby’s
voice—as if Westby felt that his cousin was a credit to the family. And
Irving thought he was.

The sports went on; not many of the runs were as exciting as that with
which the afternoon had opened. Irving passed back and forth across the
field, helped measure distances for the handicaps, and tried to be
useful. His interest had certainly been awakened. Twice in college he
had sat on the “bleachers” and viewed indifferently the track contests
between Yale and Harvard; he had had a patriotic desire to see his own
college win, but he had been indifferent to the performance of the
individuals. They had not been individuals to him—merely strange figures
performing in an arena. But here, where he knew the boys and walked
about among them, and saw the different manifestations of nervousness
and excitement, and watched the muscles in their slim legs and arms, he
became himself eager and sympathetic. He stood by when Scarborough went
on putting the shot after beating all the other competitors—went on
putting it in an attempt to break the School record. Unconsciously
Irving pressed forward to see him as he prepared for the third and last
try; unconsciously he stood with lips parted and eyes shining,
fascinated by the huge muscles that rose in Scarborough’s brown arm as
he poised the weight at his shoulder and heaved it tentatively. And when
it was announced that the effort had fallen short by only a few inches,
Irving’s sigh of disappointment went up with that of the boys.

At intervals the races were run off—the two-twenty, the quarter-mile,
the half-mile, the high hurdles, the low hurdles. Irving started them
all without any mishap. The last one, the low hurdles for two hundred
and twenty yards, was exciting; the runners were all well matched and
the handicaps were small. And so, after firing the revolver, Irving
started and ran across the field as hard as he could, to be at the
finish; he arrived in time, and stood, still holding the revolver in his
hand, while Morrill and Flack and Mason raced side by side to the tape.
They finished in that order, not more than a yard apart; and Irving
rammed his revolver into his pocket and clapped his hands and cheered
with the Corinthians.

The Pythians were now two points ahead, and there remained only one
event, the hundred yards. First place counted five points and second
place two; in these games third place did not count. So if a Corinthian
should win the hundred yards, the Corinthians would be victorious in the
meet by one point.

There were eight entries in the hundred yards—a large number to run
without interfering with one another. But the track was wide, and two of
the boys had handicaps of ten yards, one had five yards, and one had
three. So they were spread out pretty well at the start, and
consequently the danger of interference was minimized.

The runners threw off their dressing gowns and took their places. Drake,
Flack, Westby, and Mason lined up at scratch,—Westby having drawn the
inside place and being flanked by the two Pythians. There was a moment’s
pawing of the cinders, and settling down firmly on the spikes.

“Ready, everybody!” cried Irving. He drew the revolver from his pocket
and held it aloft. He was as excited as any of the runners; there was
the nervous thrill in his voice. “On your marks!” They put their hands
to the ground; he ran his eyes along them to see that all were placed.
“Set!” There was the instant stiffening of muscles. Then from the
revolver came a click. Irving had emptied the six chambers in starting
the other races, and had forgotten to reload.

“Just a moment, fellows; ease off!” he called, and they all straightened
up and faced towards him questioningly. “Just till I slip in a
cartridge,” Irving explained with embarrassment.

Westby turned on him a delighted grin, and said,—

“Can I be of any assistance, Mr. Upton?”

“No, thank you,” said Irving, and having slipped in one cartridge, he
began filling the other chambers of the revolver.

“It takes only one shot to start,” observed Westby.

“Yes,” said Irving. “If I fire a second, it will be to call you back
because of a false start.—Now then,—all ready once more. On your marks!”
They crouched. “Set!” He fired.

Somehow in the start Westby’s foot slipped, and in trying to get clear
he lunged against Flack. Irving saw it and instantly fired a second
shot, and shouted, “Come back, come back!” The runners heeded the signal
and the shout, but as they tiptoed up the track, they looked irritated.

“Westby, you fouled Flack.” Irving spoke with some asperity. “I shall
have to set you back a yard.”

“It was an accident,” Westby replied warmly. “My foot slipped. I
couldn’t help myself.”

“But it was a foul,” declared Irving, “and I shall have to set you back
a yard.”

“It was an accident, I tell you,” repeated Westby.

“If it was an accident, you oughtn’t to set him back,” said Drake, his
fellow Corinthian.

“It’s in the starter’s discretion,” spoke up Mason, the Pythian.

“The penalty’s a yard,” affirmed Irving.

Westby shut his lips tight and looked angrily contemptuous. Irving
measured the distance. “There,” he said, “you will start there.”

Westby took the place behind the others without a word.

“Ready now! On your marks!”

The pistol cracked, and this time they all got away safely, and Irving
raced after them over the grass.

From the crowd at the finish came the instant shout of names; out of the
short choppy cries two names especially emerged, “Flack! Flack! Flack!”
“Westby! Westby! Westby!” Those two were the favorites for the event.
Irving saw the scratch men forge ahead, and mingle with the handicap
runners; in the confusion of flying white figures he could not see who
were leading. But the tumult near the finish grew wild; arms and caps
were swung aloft, boys were leaping up and down; the red-haired Dennison
ran along the edge of the track, waving his arms; Morrill on the other
side did the same thing; the next moment the race had ended in a
tumultuous rush of shouting boys.

[Illustration: AS TO WHO HAD WON, IRVING HAD NOT THE SLIGHTEST IDEA]

As to who had won, Irving had not the slightest idea. He was hastening
up to find out—hoping that it had been Westby. And then out from the
crowd burst Westby and rushed towards him, panting, flushed, hot-eyed,
attended by Morrill and half a dozen other Corinthians.

“I hope you’re satisfied with your spite-work,” said Westby. His voice
shook with passion, his eyes blazed; never before had Irving seen him
when he had so lost control of himself. “You lost me that race—by half a
yard! I hope you’re pleased with yourself!”

He surveyed Irving scornfully, breathing hard, then turned his back and
strode off to the athletic house.




CHAPTER VII

THE WORM BEGINS TO TURN


After the charge which Westby had flung at him so furiously, Irving
looked in amazement to the other boys for an explanation. They were all
Corinthians, and he saw gloom and resentment in their faces.

“I think it was pretty rough, Mr. Upton, to penalize him for an
unintentional foul,” said Morrill. “He’d have beaten Flack if they’d
started even.”

“But it _was_ a foul,” protested Irving. “So I had to penalize him. I
made it as small a penalty as I could.”

“You didn’t have to penalize him unless you wanted to,” said Morrill
grimly. “Of course you had a perfect right to do as you pleased, only—”
He shrugged his shoulders and walked away, followed by the other
Corinthians.

Irving stood stricken. So this was the outcome; in seeking to be
sympathetic and to be understood, he had only caused himself somehow to
be more hated and despised. Bitterness rose within him, bitterness
against Westby, against Morrill, against boys in general, against the
school. And only an hour ago, from what he had seen and heard, he had
felt that he could like Westby, and had been not without some hope that
Westby might some time like him.

He saw Barclay standing with Mr. Randolph by the table on which were the
prize cups; Barclay was bending over, arranging them, and the boys were
gathering on the opposite side of the track, being “policed back” by the
half-dozen members of the athletic committee. Evidently the award of
prizes was to be made at once, and either Barclay or Randolph was to
hand out the cups—perhaps also to make a speech. But Irving could not
wait; he must satisfy himself of his doubts and fears, and so he hurried
forward and touched Barclay on the shoulder.

“Just a moment, please,” he said, as Barclay turned. “Did I do anything
wrong?”

“You penalized Westby a yard for fouling, I heard; is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you were within your rights. But if it was obviously an
unintentional foul, I shouldn’t have been so strict.”

“I misunderstood what you told me,” sighed Irving. “I thought that in
case of foul a fellow _had_ to be penalized.”

“Oh, no.” Barclay was busy; he had to think up something to say, by way
of a speech, and he turned and began fussing again with the cups.

Irving walked away. Even his friend Barclay was not sympathetic, did not
understand the seriousness of what had happened. He could not stay
longer to be the target of hostile, vengeful eyes; he felt that half the
boys there were blaming him in their hearts for the defeat of their
team—and that the others had no gratitude to him for their victory. Not
that it would have made him feel any better if they had; he had only
wanted and tried to be fair.

He walked away from the field, crossed the track, and passed round into
the avenue that led up to the School. When he had gone as far as the
bend where from behind the cluster of trees the School buildings became
visible, he heard the pleasant ripple of laughter from the crowd. Some
one, probably Barclay, was making a speech; to think of being able to
stand before boys and make them laugh like that! It seemed to Irving
that he had never before known what envy was.

He spent a mournful hour in his room; then, hearing footsteps on the
stairs, he closed his door. The boys were returning from the field; he
felt sure there would be remarks about him by Westby and Morrill and
other Corinthians up and down the corridor, and he preferred not to hear
them. To his surprise there was rather less disturbance than usual;
perhaps the boys were too tired after their exciting and active
afternoon to indulge in noisy skylarking. So Irving did not have to
emerge from his solitude until the supper bell rang. Even then he
waited until all the boys had passed his door and were clattering down
the stairs. Yet as he descended, Westby’s indignant voice floated up to
him,—

“Just because I guyed him—he felt he had to get even.”

At supper Westby did not look at Irving. One of the boys, Blake, made a
comment; he said,—

“That was a mighty good race you ran, Westby; hard luck you were
handicapped.”

“You can call it hard luck if you want,” said Westby.

“How did it happen, anyway?” Blake asked, quite innocently.

“Oh, don’t ask _me_,” said Westby.

Three or four of the boys who did know glanced slyly at Irving, and
Irving, though he had meant to say nothing, spoke up; there was
electricity in the air.

“Westby was unfortunate enough to foul Flack at the start; that was all
there was to it,” he said. “I saw it and set him back a yard. I was
under the impression that in case of foul a penalty had to be
imposed—and I made the penalty as light as possible.”

He felt that this statement ought to appease any reasonable boy. But
Westby was not in a reasonable mood. He paid no attention to Irving; he
addressed the table.

“I told Scarborough he might have known things would be botched
somehow.”

“Why?” asked Blake.

“Oh, you’ve got to have officials who know their business.”

There was an interval of silence at the table; Westby, having fired his
shot, sat straight, with cheeks flushed, looking across at Blake.

“Westby feels that he has had provocation and therefore may be rude.”
Irving spoke at last with calmness. “It’s true that I never officiated
before at any races. At the same time, I don’t believe I did anything
which some experienced officials would not have done. There are probably
a good many who believe in penalizing a runner for clumsy and stupid
interference as well as for deliberate intent to foul.”

He had spoken mildly; he did not even emphasize the words “clumsy and
stupid.” But the retort went home; the Pythians at the table,—of whom
Blake was one,—chuckled; and Westby, with a deeper shade of crimson on
his face and a sudden compression of his lips, lowered his eyes.

Irving had triumphed, but after the first moment he felt surprisingly
little satisfaction in his triumph. He could not help being sorry for
Westby; the boy was after all right in feeling that he had been deprived
of a victory to which he had been entitled. And as Irving looked at his
downcast face, he softened still further; Westby had so often delighted
in humiliating him, and he had longed for the opportunity of reprisal.
Now it had come, and Westby was humiliated, and the audience were not
unsympathetic with Irving for the achievement; yet Irving felt already
the sting of remorse. Westby was only a boy, and he was a master; it was
not well for a master to mortify a boy in the presence of other boys—a
boy whose disappointment was already keen.

The letters were distributed; there was one for Irving from his brother.
It contained news that made the world a different place from what it had
been an hour ago. Lawrence was playing left end on the Harvard Freshman
football eleven; not only that, but in the first game of the season,
played against a Boston preparatory school, he had made the only
touchdown. He added that that didn’t mean much, for he had got the ball
on a fluke; still, the tone of the letter was excited and elated.

And it excited and elated Irving. He folded the letter and put it in his
pocket; he sat for a moment looking out of the window with dreamy eyes
and an unconscious smile. Lawrence was succeeding, was going to succeed,
in a way far different from his own—if his own college course could be
said in any sense to have terminated in success. Lawrence would have the
athletic and the social experience which he had never had; Lawrence
would be popular as he had never been; Lawrence would go brilliantly
through college as he had never done. Everything now was in Lawrence’s
reach, and he was a boy who would not be spoiled or led astray by the
achievement of temporary glories.

In the vision of his brother’s triumphant career, Irving was transported
from the troubles and perplexities, from the self-reproaches and the
doubts which had been making him unhappy. He wanted now to share his
happiness, to take the boys into his confidence—but one can share one’s
happiness only with one’s friends. There was Westby, aggrieved and
hostile; there was Carroll, sitting next to him, the queer, quizzical,
silent youth, with whom Irving had been entirely unable to establish any
relation of intimacy; no, there were no boys at his table with whom he
was intimate enough to appeal for their interest and congratulations.
And feeling this, he shrank from communicating the news,—though he felt
sure that even Westby, who was going to Harvard the next year, might be
interested in it; he shrank from anything like boasting. He found an
outlet soon; Barclay came to see him that evening.

“I looked for you this afternoon, after the giving out of the prizes,”
said Barclay. “But I couldn’t find you.”

“No, I didn’t wait for that. Did you make a speech? I heard the boys
laughing and cheering as I came away.”

“Oh, yes, I got off a few stale jokes and some heavy-footed persiflage.
It went well enough.—But I looked for you afterwards because I felt I
may have seemed rather short when you came up; the truth is, I was
racking my brain at that moment; Scarborough had just sprung the fact on
me that I must make the speech.”

“Oh, it was all right,” said Irving. “I’m sorry to have bothered you at
such a time. I was just a little agitated because Westby was rather
angry over being penalized in the hundred—”

“So I hear. Well, it was hard luck in a way—but after all you had a
perfect right to penalize him; he did foul, and he ought to be sport
enough to take the consequences.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t have been—it wouldn’t be possible to run the race
over?”

“Certainly not. Besides, Westby has no right to say that if he’d started
even with Flack, he’d have beaten him. It’s true that he gained half a
yard on Flack in the race; but it’s also true that Flack knew he had
that much leeway. There’s no telling how much more Flack might have done
if he’d had to. So if Westby says anything to me, I shall tell him just
that.”

“I feel sorry about the thing anyway. I’m sorry I made a mess of it—as
usual.”

“Oh, cheer up; it’s not going to do you any harm with the fellows. A
little momentary flash from Westby and Morrill—”

“No, I wasn’t thinking of myself.”

“You weren’t!” The bluntness of Barclay’s exclamation of astonishment
caused Irving to blush, and Barclay himself, realizing what he had
betrayed to Irving’s perception, looked embarrassed. But Irving
laughed.

“I don’t wonder you’re surprised. I guess that’s been the worst trouble
with me here—thinking about myself. And that was what was troubling me
when I went to you this afternoon. But it isn’t any longer. I feel bad
about Westby. I can’t help thinking I did rob him of his race—and then I
sat on him at supper into the bargain.”

Barclay shouted with laughter. “You sat on Westby—and you’re sorry for
it! What’s happened to you, anyway? Tell me about it.”

Irving narrated the circumstances. “And I want to be friendly with him,”
he concluded. “Don’t you think I might explain that it was a blunder on
my part—and that I’m sorry I blundered?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Barclay. “He’s beginning to respect you now. Don’t do
anything to make him think you’re a little soft. That’s what he wants to
think, and he’d construe any such move on your part unfavorably.”

“Well, perhaps so.” Irving sighed.

“You’re stiffening up quite a lot,” observed Barclay.

“I was very wobbly when Westby and the other fellows went for me after
that race,” confessed Irving. “If I stiffened up, I guess it was just
the courage of desperation. And I don’t think that amounts to much. But
I’ve cheered up for good now.”

“How’s that?”

Somewhat shyly Irving communicated the proud news about his brother.

“Oh, I read about him in to-day’s Boston newspaper,” exclaimed Barclay.

“What?” asked Irving. “Where was it? I didn’t see it.”

“You probably don’t read all the football news, as I do. But you will
after this.” Barclay laughed. “Yes, there was quite an account of that
game, and Upton was mentioned as being the bright particular star on the
Freshman team. It never occurred to me that he was your brother.”

“Naturally not. I wish I could get away to see the game with the Yale
Freshmen; I’ve never seen Lawrence play. But I don’t suppose I could
manage that, could I?”

Barclay looked doubtful. “The rector’s pretty strict with the masters as
well as with the boys. Especially when a man has charge of a dormitory.
I somehow think it wouldn’t be wise to try it,—your first term.”

“I suppose not. Well, I shall certainly read the football columns from
now on.”

“I wonder,” remarked Barclay, “if we couldn’t get the Harvard Freshmen
up here to play a practice game with our School eleven—say, the week
before the St. John’s game? It would be good practice for them as well
as for us; three or four years ago the Freshmen played here.”

“Oh, I wish we could.” Irving’s face lighted up. “I’ll write to my
brother, and perhaps he can arrange it with the captain and manager.”

“I’ll talk it over with Collingwood first,” said Barclay. “And then
we’ll proceed officially; and you can pull any additional wires that are
possible through your brother.” He rose to go. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he
added, “if that brother of yours turned out to be a useful asset for
you here.”

“I should prefer to stand on my own legs,” said Irving. “I shan’t
advertise it round that I have a football brother.”

“Oh, it won’t be necessary for you to do that; things have a way of
leaking out.” Barclay laughed as he took his departure.

As it happened, the next day Louis Collingwood, the captain of the
School eleven, went to Barclay to consult him about the outlook for the
season.

“It seems to me we’ll have a good School team,” said Collingwood, “but
no second eleven capable of giving them hard practice—the kind they’ll
need to beat St. John’s. If we could only arrange one or two games with
outside teams, to put us into shape—”

“I was thinking of that,” said Barclay. “I wonder if we mightn’t get the
Harvard Freshmen up here. They have a good eleven, apparently.”

“Yes, awfully good, from all that the papers say. Don’t you suppose
their schedule is filled up?”

“It may be—but perhaps they could give us a date. Suppose you come over
to my house this evening and we’ll send a letter off to their captain.
And I’m sure”—Barclay threw the remark out in the most casual
manner—“Mr. Upton will be glad to approach them for us through his
brother.”

“His brother? Who’s that?”

“Why, didn’t you know? His brother plays left end on the team—”

“Kiddy Upton’s brother on the Harvard Freshmen! No!”

“Whose brother?”

“Mr. Upton’s, I meant to say.” Louis grinned. “Is he really, Mr.
Barclay?”

“I’m rather surprised you didn’t know it. But I guess Mr. Upton is the
kind that doesn’t talk much.”

“I should think he’d have let that out.”

“Well, he let it out to me. I suspect—though he hasn’t told me—that he’s
helping to put his brother through college. And his success in doing
that will naturally depend largely on his success or failure here as a
master.”

“You mean—keeping his job?”

Barclay nodded. “Yes. Oh, I don’t suppose there’s any real doubt about
that. He’s a perfectly competent teacher, isn’t he? You know; you have a
class with him.”

“Ye-es,” said Louis, slowly. “The trouble has been, the fellows horse
him a good deal—though not quite so much as they did.”

“They’ll get over that when they know him better,” remarked Barclay.

He knew that Louis Collingwood went away feeling much impressed, and he
was pretty sure he had done Irving a good turn.

It was in the noon half-hour, while Collingwood was holding this
interview with Mr. Barclay, that Westby, reading the Harvard news in his
Boston paper, went giggling into Morrill’s room.

“There’s a fellow named Upton playing on the Freshmen.” He showed
Morrill the name. “Let’s get a crowd and go in to Kiddy; I’ll get him
rattled.”

“How?” asked Morrill.

“Oh, ask him if this fellow’s a relation of his, and say I supposed of
course he must be—such athletic prowess, and all that sort of thing;
with a crowd standing there giggling you know how rattled he’ll get.”

“All right,” said Morrill, who was an earnest admirer of Westby’s wit.

So they collected Dennison and Smythe and Allison and Carroll and
Scarborough, and marched up the corridor—humorously tramping in step—to
Irving’s door. There Westby, newspaper in hand, knocked. Irving opened
the door.

“Mr. Upton, sir,” began Westby, “sorry to disturb you, sir.” The boys
all began to grin, and Irving saw that he was in for some carefully
planned attack. “I was just reading my morning paper, sir, and I wanted
to ask you what relation to you the man named Upton is that’s playing on
the Harvard Freshman eleven, sir.”

Irving’s eyes twinkled; if ever the enemy had been delivered into his
hands!

“What makes you think he’s a relation?” he asked, with an assumption of
cold dignity.

“Oh, we all feel sure he must be, sir. Of course your well-known and
justly famous interest in all athletic sports, sir—not to say your
prowess in them, sir—it’s natural to suppose that any athlete named
Upton would belong to the same family with you, sir.”

The boys were all on the broad grin; Westby’s manner was so expansively
courteous, his compliments were so absurdly urbane, that Irving threw
off his air of coldness and adopted a jaunty manner of reply which was
even more misleading.

“Oh, well, if you’ve been so clever as to guess it, Westby,” he said, “I
don’t mind telling you—it’s my brother.”

Westby bestowed on his confederates—quite indifferent as to whether
Irving detected it or not—his slow, facetious wink. He returned then to
his victim and in his most gamesome manner said,—

“I supposed of course it was your brother, sir. Or at least I should
have supposed so, except that I didn’t know you had a brother at
Harvard. Wasn’t it rather—what shall I say?—_peu aimable_ not to have
taken us, your friends, into your confidence? Would you mind telling us,
sir, what your brother’s first name is?”

“My brother’s first name? Lawrence.”

“Hm!” said Westby, referring to his newspaper. “I find him set down here
as ‘T. Upton.’ But I suppose that is a misprint, of course.”

“I suppose it must be,” agreed Irving.

“Newspapers are always making mistakes, aren’t they?” said Westby. “Such
careless fellows! We’d like awfully to hear more about your brother
Lawrence, Mr. Upton.”

The broad grin broke into a snicker.

“Why, I don’t know just what there is to tell,” Irving said awkwardly.

“What does he look like, sir? Does he resemble you very much?—I mean,
apart from the family fondness for athletics.”

Irving’s lips twitched; Westby was enjoying so thoroughly his revenge!
And the other boys were all stifling their amusement.

“We are said not to look very much alike,” he answered. “He is of a
somewhat heavier build.”

“He must be somewhat lacking, then, in grace and agility, sir,” said
Westby; and the boys broke into a shout, and Irving gave way to a faint
smile.

At that moment Collingwood came up the stairs.

“Hello, Lou,” said Westby, with a welcoming wink. “We’re just
congratulating Mr. Upton on his brother; did you know that he has a
brother playing on the Harvard Freshmen?”

“Yes,” said Collingwood. “I’ve just heard it from Mr. Barclay.”

The boys stared at Collingwood, then at Irving, whose eyes were
twinkling again and whose smile had widened. Then they looked at Westby;
he was gazing at Collingwood unbelievingly,—stupefied.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Collingwood.

And then Irving broke out into a delighted peal of laughter. He could
find nothing but slang in which to express himself, and through his
laughter he ejaculated,—

“Stung, my young friend! Stung!”

They all gave a whoop; they swung Westby round and rushed him down the
corridor to his room, shouting and jeering.

When Irving went down to lunch, Carroll, the quizzical, silent Carroll,
welcomed him with a grin. Westby turned a bright pink and looked away.
At the next table Allison and Smythe and Scarborough were all looking
over at him and smiling; and at the table beyond that Collingwood and
Morrill and Dennison were craning their necks and exhibiting their joy.
Westby, the humorist, had suddenly become the butt, a position which he
had rarely occupied before.

He was quite subdued through that meal. Once in the middle of it, Irving
looked at him and caught his eye, and on a sudden impulse leaned back
and laughed. Carroll joined in, Westby blushed once more, the Sixth
Formers at the next table looked over and began to laugh; the other boys
cast wondering glances.

“What’s the joke, Mr. Upton?” asked Blake.

“Oh, don’t ask _me_,” said Irving. “Ask Westby.”

“What is it, Wes?” said Blake, and could not understand why he received
such a vicious kick under the table, or why Carroll said in such a
jeering way, “Yes, Wes, what _is_ the joke, anyhow?”

When the meal was over, Westby’s friends lay in wait for him outside in
the hall, crowded round, and began patting him on the back and offering
him their jocular sympathy. To have the joke turned on the professional
humorist appeared to be extremely popular; and the humorist did not take
it very well. “Oh, get out, get out!” he was saying, wrenching himself
from the grasp of first one and then another. And Irving came out just
as he exclaimed in desperation, “Just the same, I’ll bet it’s all a
fake; I’ll bet he hasn’t got a brother!”

He flung himself around, trying to escape from Collingwood’s clutch,
and saw Irving. The smile faded from Irving’s face; Westby looked at him
sullenly for a moment, then broke away and made a rush up the stairs.




CHAPTER VIII

THE HARVARD FRESHMAN


For two or three days the intercourse between Irving and Westby was of
the most formal sort. At table they held no communication with each
other; in the class-room Irving gave Westby every chance to recite and
conscientiously helped him through the recitation as much as he did any
one else; in the dormitory they exchanged a cold good-night. Irving did
not press Westby for a retraction of the charge which he had overheard
the boy make; it seemed to him unworthy to dignify it by taking such
notice of it. He knew that none of the boys really believed it and that
Westby himself did not believe it, but had been goaded into the
declaration in the desperate effort to maintain a false position. Irving
wondered if the boy would not have the fairness to make some
acknowledgment of the injustice into which his pride had provoked him.

And one day at luncheon, Westby turned to Irving and with an embarrassed
smile said,

“Mr. Upton, do you get any news from your brother about the Harvard
Freshman eleven?”

Carroll directed at Westby the quizzical look under which Irving had so
often suffered. But Westby did not flinch; he waited for Irving’s
answer, with his embarrassed, appealing smile.

“I had a letter from him this morning,” said Irving. “He writes that
there is a chance of their coming up here to play the School eleven; I
had asked him if that couldn’t be arranged.”

“Oh, really!” exclaimed Westby, in a tone of honest interest.

“When, Mr. Upton?” “Does he think they’ll come?” “Does Lou Collingwood
know about it?”

“I guess he knows as much as I do.” Irving tried to answer the flood of
questions. “He wrote officially to the captain at the same time that I
wrote to Lawrence. If they come at all, it will be about a week before
the St. John’s game.”

“When shall we know for sure?” asked Westby.

“It appears to be a question whether the Freshmen will choose to play us
or Lakeview School. They want to play whichever team seems the stronger,
and they’re going to discuss the prospects and decide in a few days.”

“I’m sure we’re better than Lakeview,” declared Blake. “You’ll tell your
brother we are, won’t you, Mr. Upton?”

“I’ll tell him that I understand we have a very superior team,” said
Irving. “I fancy he knows that it’s as much as I can do to tell the
difference between a quarterback and a goal post.”

“You will admit, then, that there was some reason for my not believing
you had a football brother, won’t you, Mr. Upton?” Westby tried thus to
beat a not wholly inglorious retreat.

“Every reason—until it became a matter of doubting my word,” said
Irving.

Westby crimsoned, and Irving felt that again he had been too severe with
him; the boy had been trying to convey an apology, without actually
making one; it might have been well to let him off.

But Irving reflected that the account was still far from even and that
perhaps this unwonted adversity might be good for Westby. Irving did not
realize quite how much teasing had been visited upon Westby in
consequence of his disastrous error, or how humiliated the boy had been
in his heart. For Westby was proud and vain and sensitive, accustomed to
leadership, unused to ridicule; for two days now the shafts of those
whom he had been in the habit of chaffing with impunity had been
rankling. Because of this sensitive condition, the final rebuke at the
luncheon table, before all the boys, cut him more deeply than Irving
suspected. Afterwards Westby said to Carroll,—

“Oh, very well. If he couldn’t accept my acknowledgment of my mistake,
but had to jump on me again—well, it’s just spite on his part; that’s
all. I don’t care; I can let him alone after this. That seems to be what
he wants.”

“A month ago he wouldn’t have asked more than that of you,” observed
Carroll. “And you didn’t feel like obliging him then.”

The implication that Irving had worsted him galled Westby.

“Oh,” he retorted, “the best of jokes will wear out. Kiddy was a
perfectly good joke for a while—”

Carroll annoyed him by laughing.

For one who had hitherto been indifferent to all forms of athletics,
Irving developed a surprising interest in the game of football. Every
afternoon he went to the field and watched the practice of the Pythian
and Corinthian elevens. He had once thought the forward pass a detail
incapable of engaging one’s serious attention, and worthy of rebuke if
attempted in dormitory; but after Lawrence wrote that in executing it he
was acquiring some proficiency, Irving studied it with a more curious
eye.

He wondered if Lawrence was as skillful at it as Collingwood, for
instance; Collingwood had now learned to shoot the ball with accuracy
twenty or twenty-five yards. Occasionally Irving got hold of a football
and tested his own capacity in throwing it; his attempts convinced him
that in this matter he had a great deal to learn. Looking back, he could
comprehend Louis Collingwood’s indignation and amazement at a master who
would coldly turn away when a boy was trying to illustrate for him the
forward pass.

One afternoon from watching the football practice Irving moved aside for
a little while to see the finish of the autumn clay-pigeon shoot of the
Gun Club.

There were only six contestants, and there were not many spectators;
most of the boys preferred to stay on the football field, where there
was more action; the second Pythians and second Corinthians were playing
a match. But Irving had heard Westby talking at luncheon about the
shoot and strolled over more from curiosity to see how he would acquit
himself than for any other reason.

The trap was set in the long grass on the edge of the meadow near the
woods; Allison was performing the unexciting task of pulling the string
and releasing the skimming disks. When Irving came up, Smythe was
finishing; he did not appear to be much of a shot, for he missed three
out of the seven “birds” which Irving saw him try for.

Then it was Westby’s turn. Westby had got himself up for the occasion,
in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and leggings; he was always
scrupulous about appearing in costumes that were extravagantly correct.
He saw Irving and somewhat ostentatiously turned away.

Irving waited and looked on. Westby stood in an almost negligent
attitude, with his gun lowered; the trap was sprung, the clay pigeon
flew—and then was shattered in the midst of its flight. It seemed to
Irving that Westby hardly brought his gun to his shoulder to take aim.
It could not all be luck either; that was evident when Westby demolished
ten clay pigeons in rapid succession. It was Carroll’s turn now; Westby,
having made his perfect score, blew the smoke from the breech and stood
by.

Irving went up to him.

“I congratulate you on your shooting, Westby,” he said. “It seems quite
wonderful to a man who never fired a gun off but a few times in his
life—and then it was a revolver, with blank cartridges.”

Westby looked at him coolly. “It’s funny you’ve never done anything that
most fellows do,” he observed. “Were you always afraid of hurting
yourself?”

“I was offering my congratulations, Westby,” said Irving stiffly, and
walked away.

“Why did you go at him like that?” asked Carroll, who had heard the
interchange.

“Oh,” said Westby, “I wasn’t going to have him hanging round swiping to
me, soft-soaping me.”

“I think he was only trying to be decent,” said Carroll.

“I like a man who is decent without trying,” Westby retorted.

Yet whether his nerves were a little upset by the episode or his eye
thrown off by the wait, Westby did not do so well in the next round. The
trap was set to send the birds skimming lower and faster; Westby missed
two out of ten, and was tied for first place with Carroll. And in the
final shoot to break the tie, Westby lost.

He shook hands with Carroll, but with no excess of good humor. He knew
he was really the better shot, and even though Carroll was his closest
friend, the defeat rankled.

At supper Blake congratulated Carroll across the table.

“You won, did you, Carroll?” asked Irving.

“Yes, sir—by a close shave.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t stay to see it.” The remark was innocent in
intention, but to Westby it seemed edged with malice—as if the master
was exulting over his defeat.

Something in Westby’s expression told Irving what the boy had inferred;
Irving went afterwards to his room in a despondent mood. It didn’t
matter how hard he tried or what he did; he had not the faculty of
winning and holding affection and respect. As it was with boys, so it
would be with men. If only he could see how and why he failed, and could
learn to correct his mistakes!

He felt of more importance in the School world when a letter from
Lawrence was the first announcement that the Freshman eleven would come
to play St. Timothy’s. He asked Collingwood if he had had any word, and
when Collingwood said no, he told him his brother’s message.

“I don’t believe there can be any mistake,” said Irving. “He writes that
it was decided only the night before. You’ll probably receive the
official communication in a day or two.”

Collingwood was tremendously elated. “I knew we were better than
Lakeview—but I was afraid they wouldn’t realize it,” he said. “Now
we’ll have to get ready and beat them. Anyway, if we can’t do that, it
will be the best kind of preparation for the St. John’s game.”

The official communication arrived; Collingwood rushed with it to the
bulletin board in the Study building and posted it for all eyes to see.
The same day he posted the School eleven, as it would line up in that
game.

Westby was to be first substitute for Dennison at right half back.
Westby had been playing a streaky game on the First Corinthians; on some
days he was as brilliant a runner and tackler as there was in the
School, and on other days he would lose interest and miss everything.

If he was disappointed at the preference given to Dennison, he did not
show it; in fact, that he appeared on the list as substitute seemed to
fill him with elation. He had never taken football quite so seriously as
some of the others—as Collingwood and Dennison, for example; and
therefore only a moderate success in it was for him a matter of
gratification.

The training table was organized at once, but Westby was not admitted to
it. There was not room for the substitutes; they were expected to do
their own training. Westby was notoriously lax in that matter and had to
be nagged constantly by Collingwood, whom he found some pleasure in
teasing.

He would secure some forbidden article of food and ostentatiously appear
to be eating it with the greatest enjoyment until he caught
Collingwood’s eye; a large circular doughnut or a chocolate éclair
delicately poised between his thumb and finger were his favorite
instruments for torturing his captain’s peace of mind. He would contrive
to be seen just as he was on the point of taking the first bite; then he
would reluctantly lay the tidbit down.

“It’s a hard life, this being a near athlete,” he grumbled. “Sitting at
a table with a lot of uncongenial pups like you fellows.—Mr. Upton,
Blake’s kicking me; make him quit, sir.—Not allowed to eat half the
things the rest of you do, and not allowed either to get any of the
training-table grub. Well, I never did think of self, so I can endure it
better than most.”

The others jeered. But Westby, however he might complain, was faithful
at practice and accepted good-naturedly his position upon the second
eleven, and the hard battering to which every one on the second eleven
was subjected.

The day when he got round Morrill, the first eleven’s left end, and
scored a touchdown—the only one which in that week of practice the
second eleven scored—brought him so much applause that he began really
to think there might be a chance of his ousting Dennison from the
regular position. When that notion entered his head he ceased to be
facetious about the training; he became suddenly as serious as
Collingwood himself. But in spite of that, he remained Dennison’s
substitute.

The Saturday set for the game with the Harvard Freshmen was an Indian
Summer day. In the early morning mist wreathed the low meadows and the
edges of the pond; it seemed later to dissipate itself through all the
windless air in haze. The distant hills were blue and faint, the elms in
the soft sunlight that filtered down had a more golden glow.

“Great day,” was the salutation that one heard everywhere; “great day
for the game.”

Now and then in his morning classes Irving’s thoughts would wander,
there would be a gentle rush of excitement in his veins. He would turn
his mind firmly back to his work; he did not do any less well that day
because his heart was singing happily.

In three hours more—in two—in one—he was going to see Lawrence again; he
wondered if he would find his brother much changed. Only two months had
passed since they had parted; yet in that time how remote Lawrence had
grown in Irving’s eyes from the Lawrence of the Ohio farm!

The bell announcing the noon recess rang; Irving dismissed his last
class. He hurried down the stairs almost as madly as the Fourth Formers
themselves; the train on which the Harvard Freshmen were coming was due
ten minutes before; already Lawrence and the others must have started on
the two-mile drive out to the School.

In front of the Study building most of the older boys and many of the
younger were congregated, awaiting the arrival of the visitors. Irving
walked about among the groups impatiently, now and then looking at his
watch. He passed Westby and Collingwood, who were standing together by
the gate.

“Pretty nearly time for them, Mr. Upton,” said Westby. “Feeling nervous,
sir?”

There was more good nature in his smile than he had displayed towards
Irving since the day of the track games.

“A little,” Irving admitted, and at that moment some one shouted, “Here
they come!”

Over the crest of the hill galloped four horses, drawing a long red
barge crowded with boys. Collingwood climbed up on the gate-post.

“Now, fellows,” he said, “when they get here, give three times three for
the Freshmen.”

The boys waited in silence. Irving strained his eyes, trying to
distinguish the figures huddled together in the barge. The horses came
down at a run, with a rattle of hoofs and harness; the driver
flourished his whip over them spectacularly.

“Now then, fellows!” cried Collingwood. “Three times three for the
Freshmen!”

And amidst the waving of caps as the cheers were given, Irving could see
no one in the barge. Then when that cheer had subsided, one of the
visitors stood up and took off his hat and shouted,—

“Three times three for St. Timothy’s! One—two—three!” The fellows in the
barge sent up a vigorous, snappy cheer, and then overflowed at back and
sides. In the confusion and the crowd, Irving was still straining his
short-sighted eyes in a vain attempt to discover Lawrence.

Suddenly he heard a shout,—“Hello, Irv!”—and there, a little way off,
was Lawrence, laughing at him and struggling towards him through the
throng. The boys understood and drew apart and let the two brothers
meet.

“It’s great to see you again, Irv,” said Lawrence, when he could reach
and grasp his brother’s hand; he looked at Irving with the same old
loving humor in his eyes.

“It’s great to see you again, Lawrence,” said Irving. He could not help
being a little conscious and constrained, with so many eyes upon him.

He tucked one hand in his brother’s arm and with the other reached for
Lawrence’s bag. Lawrence laughed, and with hardly an effort detached it
from Irving’s grasp.

“_You_ carry that, you little fellow! I guess not,” he said.

Some of the boys heard and smiled, and Lawrence threw back at them a
humorous smile; Irving blushed. He led Lawrence away, towards the Upper
School. The other Freshmen were being conducted in the same direction by
Collingwood and his team.

“Well,” said Westby to Carroll in an outpouring of slang from the
heart, “Kiddy’s brother is certainly a peach of a good looker. I hope
he’ll bring him to lunch.”




CHAPTER IX

WESTBY IN THE GAME


It was with satisfaction that Westby and Carroll saw Lawrence entering
the dining-room with Irving. They had observed the long table spread in
the common room of the Upper School, where the visiting team were to be
entertained at luncheon, and had supposed therefore that they would have
no chance of satisfying their curiosity about the master’s brother.

When Irving introduced Lawrence to them, Westby said,—

“We hoped we were going to see you here, but we were afraid you might
have to eat outside with your team.”

“Oh, I got special permission from the captain for this occasion,” said
Lawrence. “I’m afraid I’m depriving somebody of his seat,” he added to
Irving.

“It’s Caldwell—I arranged with him about it. He’s gone to Mr. Randolph’s
table.”

“Besides, he’s only a Fourth Former,” said Westby.

Lawrence laughed. “You’re Sixth, I suppose?” Westby nodded. “Going to
Harvard next year?”

“Yes.”

“Good for you. I’ll tell you one thing; you couldn’t have a better man
to get you in than this brother of mine—if I do say it. He tutored me
for Harvard—and I guess you’ve never had a worse blockhead, have you,
Irv?”

“Oh, you were all right in some things, Lawrence.”

“I’d like to know what. How I used to try your patience, though!”
Lawrence chuckled, then turned and addressed the boys, especially Westby
and Carroll, as they were the oldest. “Did any of you ever see him mad?”

“Oh, surely never that,” said Westby urbanely. “Irritated perhaps, but
not mad—never lacking in self-control.”

Westby, thinking himself safe, ventured upon his humorous wink to Blake
and the others who were grinning; Lawrence intercepted it and at once
fixed Westby with a penetrating gaze.

Westby colored and looked down; Lawrence held his eyes on him until
Westby looked up and then, in even greater embarrassment under this
prolonged scrutiny, down again. Then Lawrence turned to his brother.

“Tell me, Irv,” he said in a tone that simply brushed aside as
non-existent everybody else at the table—just as if he and his brother
were talking together alone, “what sort of kids do you have to look
after in your dormitory, anyhow?”

Irving’s lip twitched with amusement; Westby, still scarlet, was looking
at his plate. “Oh, a pretty good sort—but they’re Sixth Formers, you
know—not kids.”

“Pretty fresh, are they—trying to show off a good deal and be funny?”

“Oh, one or two only; still, even they aren’t bad.”

Lawrence paid no further attention to Westby. Now and then he spoke to
Carroll and to Blake, but most of his conversation—and it dealt with the
sort of college life about which boys liked to hear, and about which
Irving had never been able to enlighten them—he addressed directly to
his brother.

Westby listened to it gloomily; there were many questions that he wanted
to ask, but now he did not dare. Evidently Mr. Upton had warned his
brother against him, had imparted to his brother his own dislike; that
was why Lawrence had nipped so brutally his harmless, humorous allusion
to the master’s temper.

As a matter of fact, Lawrence had had no previous knowledge whatever of
Westby; Irving had always withstood his impulse to confide his troubles.
He made now an effort to draw Westby forward and reinstate him in the
conversation; he said,—

“Lawrence, you and Westby here may come against each other this
afternoon; Westby’s first substitute for one of the half-backs on the
School eleven.”

Lawrence said, “That’s good,” and gave Westby hardly a glance.

After luncheon, walking down to the athletic field with Westby, Carroll
said jeeringly,—

“Well, Kiddy Upton’s brother is no myth, is he, Wes?”

At that Westby began to splutter. “Conceited chump! He makes me tired.
Of all the fresh things—to sit up there and talk about the ‘kids’ in
Kiddy’s dormitory!”

Carroll laughed in his silent, irritating way. “He certainly put you
down and out—a good hard one. Why, even Kiddy was sorry for you.”

Westby went on fuming. “Sorry for me! I guess Kiddy had been whining to
him about how I’d worried him. That’s why the chump had it in for me.”

“Chump, Wes! Such a peach of a good looker?”

“Oh, shut up. I don’t care if he is good looking; he’s fresher than
paint.”

“He would think that was a queer criticism for you to make.”

Westby stalked on in angry silence. He was more wounded than he could
let Carroll know. There was a side to him which he shrank from
displaying,—the gentle, affectionate side of which Irving had had a
glimpse when the boy was anxiously watching his young cousin Price in
the mile run; and to this quality Lawrence’s greeting of his brother had
unconsciously appealed. Westby had stood by and heard his words, “_You_
carry that, you little fellow!” had seen the humor in his eyes and the
gentleness on his lips, and had felt something in his own throat.

For all his affectation of worldliness and cynicism, the boy was a
hero-worshiper at heart, and could never resist being attracted by a
fine face and a handsome pair of eyes and a pleasant voice; Lawrence had
in the first glance awakened an enthusiasm which was eager for near
acquaintance. And now, although he talked so venomously against him, it
was not Lawrence whom he reproached in his heart; it was himself.

Why had he been unable to resist the impulse to be smart, to be funny,
to be cheap? He might have known that a fellow like Lawrence would see
through his remark and would resent it; he might have known that his
silly, clownish wink could not escape Lawrence’s keen eyes.

So Westby walked on, gloomily reproaching himself, unconscious that at
that very moment, walking a hundred yards behind, Irving was defending
him.

“A month ago, Lawrence, I’d have been glad to have you light on Westby
as you did,” he said. “But now I’m rather sorry.”

“Why so?”

“Oh, he’s had some hard luck lately, and—well, I don’t know. Those
encounters with a boy don’t seem to me worth while.”

“You’ve got to suppress them when they’re fresh like that,” insisted
Lawrence. “For a fellow to talk to you in that fresh way before a
guest—and that guest your brother—I don’t stand for it; that’s all.”

“No, I don’t either. Well, it doesn’t matter much; reproof slides off
Westby like water off a duck’s back.”

They talked of other things then until Lawrence had to join his team and
enter the athletic house with them to dress.

Out on the field Irving mingled with the crowd, walked to and fro
nervously, stopped to say only a word now to a boy, now to a master, and
then passed on. It was foolish for him to be so excited, so tremulous,
he told himself. Lawrence had parted from him with the same calmness
with which he might have gone to prepare for bed. It was all the more
foolish to be so excited, because the accessories to promote a
preliminary excitement were lacking,—rivalry, partisanship; the visiting
team had no supporters.

The School had turned out to see the game, but there was no cheering, no
thrill of expectation; the boys stood about and waited quietly, as they
would before ordinary practice. It would be different in another week,
when the St. John’s team were sharing the athletic house with St.
Timothy’s, and the adherents of the two schools were ranged opposite
each other, waving flags and hurling back and forth challenging
cheers—cheers meant to inspirit the players while they dressed. But now
Irving was aware that he in all the crowd was the only one whose nerves
and muscles were quivering, whose voice might not be quite natural or
quite under his control, whose heart was beating hard.

If Lawrence should not play well this time—the first time he had ever
seen him play! Or if anything should happen to him! Irving tramped back
and forth, digging cold hands into his pockets.

The Harvard team was the first to leave the athletic house; they broke
through the line of spectators near where Irving stood and trotted out
on the field. As they passed, he caught his brother’s eye and waved to
him. In the preliminary practice Irving watched him eagerly; with his
light curly hair he was conspicuous, and as he was on the end of the
line his movements were easy to follow. It seemed to Irving that he was
the quickest and the readiest and the handsomest of them all.

Out came St. Timothy’s, and then there was a cheer. The two teams went
rollicking and tumbling up and down the field for a few moments; then
Collingwood and the Harvard captain met in the centre, Mr. Barclay
tossed a coin, and the players went to their positions. Mr. Barclay blew
a whistle; the game began.

From that time on Irving trotted up and down the side lines, his heart
twittering with pride and anxiety. After every scrimmage, after every
tackle, he looked apprehensively for a curly light head; he was always
glad when he saw it bob up safely out of a pile. Through all the press
and conflict, he watched for it, followed it—just as, he thought in one
whimsical moment, the French troopers of Macaulay’s poem watched for the
white plume of Navarre.

If he had known even less about the game than he did, he must still have
seen that for Harvard his brother and Ballard, the fullback, were
playing especially well. Ballard, with his hard plunges through the
centre and his long punts, was the chief factor in Harvard’s offensive
game; Lawrence was their ablest player on the defense.

After the first ten minutes St. Timothy’s made hardly an attempt to go
round his end, but devoted their assaults to the centre and other wing
of the line.

If there was one thing for which Collingwood, the best football player
in the School, had achieved a special reputation, it was the fleetness
and dexterity with which he could run the ball back after punts. He was
known as the best man in the back field that St. Timothy’s had had in
years. So when Ballard prepared for his first kick, the spectators
looked on with composure.

It was a fine kick; the ball went spiraling high and far, but
Collingwood was under it as it fell, and Dennison was in front of him to
protect him.

Yet Lawrence, rushing down upon them, was too quick, too clever;
Dennison’s attempt to block him off was only a glancing one that
staggered him for the fraction of an instant; and the ball had no sooner
struck in Collingwood’s arms than Lawrence launched himself and hurled
the runner backwards.

“Whew! What a fierce tackle!” ejaculated a boy near Irving admiringly.

“I think Lou did well to hang on the ball,” responded his friend.

Irving heard; he went about greedily drinking in comments which that
tackle had evoked. He found himself standing behind Westby and the other
substitutes, who, wrapped in blankets, trailed up and down the field
keeping pace with the progress of their team.

“No!” Briggs, one of the substitutes, was saying. “Was that Kiddy
Upton’s brother? He’s a whirlwind, isn’t he?”

“Looked to me as if he was trying to lay Lou Collingwood out,” returned
Westby sourly.

At once Irving’s cheeks flamed hot. He put out his hand and touched
Westby’s shoulder; the boy turned, and then the blood rushed into his
cheeks too.

“Was there anything wrong about that tackle, Westby?” Irving asked.

“It just seemed to me he threw him pretty hard.”

Irving spoke to the three or four other substitutes standing by.

“I don’t know much about football; was there anything wrong with that
tackle—that it should be criticised?”

“It looked all right to me,” said Briggs.

“If there is any question about it, I shall want to talk to my brother—”

“Oh, it was all right,” Windom spoke up. “It was a good, clean, hard
tackle—the right kind. Wes is always down on the enemy, aren’t you,
Wes?”

Westby stood in sullen silence. The next play was started; St. Timothy’s
gained five yards, and in the movement of the crowd Irving and Westby
were separated.

For a few moments Irving’s thoughts were diverted from his brother, and
his joyous excitement was overshadowed by regret. He felt less indignant
with Westby than sorry for him; he knew that the boy had repented of his
hasty and intemperate words. If he would only come up and acknowledge
it—so that he might be forgiven!

Then Irving put Westby out of his mind. St. Timothy’s had kicked;
Ballard had recovered the ball for Harvard on St. Timothy’s forty-yard
line, and then Warren, the quarterback, had made a long pass straight
into Lawrence’s hands; Lawrence started to run; then, just as Chase and
Baldersnaith were bearing down for the tackle, he stopped and hurled the
ball forward and across to Newell, the other Harvard end.

It sailed clear over the heads of the intervening players; Newell had
been signaled to, had got down the field and was ready for it; three St.
Timothy’s players ran to get under the ball, but instead of blocking
Newell off and merely trying to spoil his catch, they all tried to make
the catch themselves; they all leaped for it. Newell was the quickest;
he grabbed the ball out of the air and went down instantly, with the
three others on him—but he was on St. Timothy’s ten-yard line.

It was a brilliant pass and a brilliant catch; St. Timothy’s stood
looking on disconsolate, while the Harvard players gathered exultantly
for the line-up. Three rushes through tackle and centre and one run
round Lawrence’s end carried the ball across St. Timothy’s line for a
touchdown. Ballard kicked the goal.

There was no more scoring that half. In the second half St. Timothy’s
kicked off; Harvard got the ball and set about rushing it back up the
field. They had gained ten yards and had carried the ball forty yards
from their own goal, when they lost possession of it on a fumble. The
spectators cheered, and began shouting,—

“Touchdown, St. Timothy’s, touchdown!”

There was more shouting when, with Collingwood interfering for him,
Dennison broke through the Harvard left tackle and made fifteen yards.
Then Collingwood made a quarter-back kick which Morrill captured on the
Harvard five-yard line.

The St. Timothy’s cheering broke out afresh, Scarborough leading it.
Irving joined in the cheer; he was glad to see Collingwood and the
others making gains—provided they did not make them round Lawrence’s
end.

On the five-yard line the Harvard defense stiffened. On the third down
the ball was two yards from the goal line.

“Everybody get into this next play—everybody!” cried Collingwood
appealingly; he went about slapping his men on the back. “Now
then—twelve, thirty-seven, eighteen.”

There was a surge forward, a quivering, toppling mass that finally fell
indecisively. No one knew whether the ball had been pushed across or
not. No one wanted to get up for fear it might be pushed one way or the
other in the shifting.

Barclay and Randolph, who was umpire, began summarily dragging the
players from the pile, hauling at an arm or a leg; at last Dennison was
revealed at the bottom hugging the ball—and it was just across the line.

Then all the St. Timothy’s players capered about for joy, and the
spectators shouted as triumphantly as if it had been the St. John’s
game; the Harvard team ranged themselves quietly under the goal.
Dennison kicked the goal, and the score was tied.

For the next ten minutes neither team succeeded in making much progress.
St. Timothy’s were playing more aggressively than in the first half;
twice Kenyon, the Harvard halfback, started to skirt round Lawrence’s
end, but both times Baldersnaith, the St. Timothy’s tackle, broke
through and dragged him down. Baldersnaith, Dennison, Morrill, and
Collingwood were especially distinguishing themselves for the School.

At last, after one of the scrimmages, Dennison got up, hobbled a moment,
and then sat down again. Collingwood hurried over to him anxiously.

“Wrenched my ankle,” said Dennison. “I guess I’ll be all right in a
moment.”

Waring, the Fifth Former, who acted as water-carrier, ran out on the
field with his pail and sponge. Mr. Barclay examined the ankle, then
turned to Collingwood.

“I think he could go on playing,” he said. “But if I were you I’d take
him out now and save him for the St. John’s game. You don’t want to risk
his being laid up for that.”

Dennison protested, but Collingwood agreed with Mr. Barclay. He turned
and called, “Westby”; and as Westby ran out, Dennison picked himself up
and limped to the side-line.

It was Harvard’s ball in the middle of the field. Though it was only the
first down, Ballard dropped back to kick.

“Now then, Wes, hang on to it,” Collingwood cried as he and Westby
turned and ran to their places in the back field.

Westby had a faint hope that the kick might go to Collingwood; he didn’t
feel quite ready yet to catch the ball; he wanted to be given a chance
to steady down first. But he knew that was exactly what the Harvard
quarterback intended to prevent.

The ball came sailing, high and twisting; he had to run back to get
under it. Then he planted himself, but the ball as it came down was
slanted off by the wind, so that he had at the last to make a sudden
dash for it; it struck and stuck, hugged to his breast, and then over
he went with a terrific shock, which jarred the ball from his grasp.

Irving had seen the play with mingled joy and sorrow. It was his brother
who had made the tackle; it was Newell, the other Harvard end, who had
dropped on the fumbled ball.

Westby and Lawrence got to their feet together; Lawrence’s eyes were
dancing with triumphant expectation; the ball was Harvard’s now on St.
Timothy’s twenty-yard line. And Westby went dully to his position, aware
of the accusing silence of the crowd.

“All right, Wes; we’ll stop them,” Collingwood said to him cheerfully.

Westby did his best and flung himself desperately into the thick of
every scrimmage. The whole team did its best, but Harvard would not be
denied. By short rushes they fought their way down, down, and at last
across the goal line—and the game was won. There were only three minutes
left to play, and in that time neither side scored.

When Mr. Barclay blew his whistle, the Harvard team assembled and
cheered St. Timothy’s, and then St. Timothy’s assembled and cheered
Harvard. After that the players walked to the athletic house, beset on
the way by the curious or by friends.

Westby was the victim of condolences, well meant but ill-timed; he
responded curtly when Blake, pushing near, said to him, “It was awfully
hard luck, Wes—but after that you played a mighty good game.” He wished
nothing but to be let alone, he wished no sympathy. He knew that he had
lost the game; that was enough for him.

In the dressing-room he sat on a bench next to Lawrence Upton and began
putting on his clothes in silence. The other boys were talking all round
him, commenting cheerfully on the plays and on the future prospects of
the teams.

Lawrence refrained from discussing the game at all; he asked Westby what
St. Timothy’s boys he knew at Harvard, and where he expected to room
when he went there; he tried to be friendly. But Westby repelled his
efforts, answering in a sullen voice. At last Lawrence finished
dressing; he picked up his bag and turned to Westby.

“Look here,” he said, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m going to
be at Harvard the next three years; we’re likely to meet. Must a little
hard luck make hard feeling?”

“Oh, there’s no hard feeling,” Westby assured him.

“Glad to hear it. Good-by.” Lawrence held out his hand.

“You’re not going to stay for supper?”

“No. I’m going back with the team on the six o’clock train—hour exam on
Monday. My brother’s waiting for me outside; I want to see him for a
while before we start. I hope to come up here some time again—hope I’ll
see you.”

“Thanks. I hope so. Good-by.”

The words were all right, but Westby spoke them mechanically. It had
flashed upon him that Lawrence would now learn from his brother the
charge that he had so unjustly and hotly made. And of a sudden he wished
he could prevent that. He would have been glad to go to Irving and
retract it all and apologize; anything to keep Lawrence from hearing of
it.

Why had he been so slow in dressing—why hadn’t he hurried on his clothes
and gone out ahead of Lawrence and made it all right with Irving!

With a wild thought that it might not yet be too late, he flung on his
coat and rushed from the building—only to see Irving and Lawrence
walking together across the football field.




CHAPTER X

MASTER AND BOY


For several days Westby’s unnatural quiet was attributed to his
sensitiveness over the error which had given the Harvard Freshmen their
victory. It was most noticeable at Irving’s table; there his bubbling
spirits seemed permanently to have subsided; he wrapped himself in
silence and gloom. His manner towards Irving was that of haughty
displeasure. Carroll was at a loss to understand it and questioned him
about it one day.

“Oh, I’m just tired of him—tired of hearing his everlasting brag about
his brother,” Westby said sharply.

“He bragged so little about him once you wouldn’t believe he had a
brother,” replied Carroll. “I don’t see that he brags much more about
him now.”

“Well, I see it, and it annoys me,” retorted Westby rudely. “I think
I’ll see if I can have my seat changed. I’d rather sit at Scabby’s
table.”

Mr. Randolph, however, the head of the Upper School, refused to grant
Westby’s petition.

“You don’t give any special reason,” he said. “You have friends at Mr.
Upton’s table; you ought to be contented to stay there. What’s the
matter? Are you having friction with some one?”

“I should be better satisfied if I were at Scarborough’s table,” said
Westby.

“We can’t gratify every individual preference or whim,” replied Mr.
Randolph.

He asked Irving if he knew of any reason why Westby should be
transferred and told him that the boy had asked for the change.

“Oh, it’s just between him and me,” said Irving wearily. “We don’t get
on.”

“Then you’d like to have him go, too?”

“No, I wouldn’t. When he’s his natural self, I like him. And I haven’t
yet given up the hope that some time we’ll get together.”

He met Westby’s coldness with coolness. But on the morning of the St.
John’s game, after breakfast, he drew Westby aside. He held a letter in
his hand.

“Westby,” he said, “I don’t know that you will care to hear it, but I
have a message for you from my brother.”

Westby cast down his eyes and reddened. “I don’t suppose I shall care to
hear it,” he said with a humility that amazed Irving. “But go ahead—give
it to me, Mr. Upton.”

“I don’t quite understand—he just asked me to say to you that he hopes
you’ll get your chance in the game to-day. He felt you were rather cut
up by your hard luck in the Freshman game.”

“Didn’t he—isn’t he—” Westby hesitated for an uncomfortable moment, then
blurted out, “Isn’t he sore at me, Mr. Upton?”

“What for?”

“For saying about him what I did—about his trying to lay Collingwood out
when he tackled.”

“He doesn’t know you said it.”

“Oh! Didn’t you tell him?”

“No. The criticism was unjust—there was no use in repeating it.”

“It was unjust.” Westby had lowered his voice. “I am very much ashamed,
Mr. Upton.”

“That’s all right,” said Irving. He took Westby’s hand. “I hope too
you’ll get your chance in the game.”

“Thank you.” Westby spoke humbly. “I hope if I do, I won’t make a mess
of it again.”

That game was far different in color and feeling from the one with the
Freshmen on the Saturday before. Long before it began the boys of St.
John’s with their blue banners and flags and the boys of St. Timothy’s
with their red were ranged on opposite sides of the field, hurling
defiant, challenging cheers across at one another; for St. Timothy’s a
band, in which Scarborough beat the drum and was director, paraded back
and forth; the little boys were already hopping up and down and
trembling and squealing with excitement; already their little voices
were almost gone.

Irving knew that to himself alone was this occasion one of less moving
interest than that of the preceding Saturday; as he stood and looked on
at the waving red and the waving blue and later at the struggle that was
being waged in the middle of the field, he wondered how on this
afternoon that other game between the red and the blue was going, and
how Lawrence was acquitting himself.

Certainly it could not, he thought, be any more close, more hotly
contested, than this of the two rival schools. All through the first
half they fought each other without scoring.

Once St. Timothy’s had got down to St. John’s fifteen-yard line, but
then had been unable to go farther, and Dennison had missed by only a
few feet his try for a goal from the field.

Early in the second half St. Timothy’s met with misfortune. Dennison was
laid out by a hard tackle; when at last he got to his feet, he limped
badly. Louis Collingwood took him by the arm and walked round with him;
Dennison was arguing, protesting. But Collingwood led him towards the
side-line, patting him on the back, and called “Westby!”

The spectators cheered the injured player who came off so reluctantly;
then they cheered Westby as he ran out upon the field. Irving was near
the group of substitutes when Dennison hobbled in.

“Hurt much, Denny?” asked Briggs.

“No—just that same old ankle—hang it all!” Dennison slipped into a
blanket and lowered himself painfully to the ground.

Irving’s eyes were upon Westby; he hoped that this time the boy would
not fail. Westby had an opportunity now to steady his nerves; it was St.
Timothy’s ball and only the first down. Collingwood gave the signal;
Irving watched closely, saw Westby take the ball on the pass and dive
into the line. In a moment all the St. Timothy’s eleven seemed to be
behind him, hurling him through, and St. Timothy’s on the side-lines
waved and shouted, for Westby had gained five yards.

Collingwood called on him again; he gained three yards more. Irving
shouted with the rest; he turned to Mr. Randolph and said,—

“That ought to give Westby confidence.”

“I hope it does; he’s so erratic,” Mr. Randolph answered. “If only he’s
starting in now on one of his brilliant streaks!”

Lane, the Fifth Form halfback, tried to go round the end on the next
play, but made no gain. Then Westby was driven again at left tackle, but
he got only two yards.

Collingwood gave the signal for a criss-cross; Lane took the ball, and
passed it to Westby, who was already on the run. Westby got clear of the
St. John’s end, and seemed well started for a brilliant run; but their
halfback chased him across the field and finally, by a tremendous diving
tackle, pulled him down. As it was, Westby had made so much of a gain
that the distance had to be measured; he had failed by only a few inches
to make the required amount, and the ball went to St. John’s on their
thirty-five-yard line.

St. John’s made two ineffectual rushes; then their fullback, Warner,
prepared to kick. Westby and Collingwood raced to their places in the
back field.

There was a tense moment on both sides; then Warner sent the ball flying
high and far. It was Westby’s ball; the St. John’s ends and one of their
tackles came down fast under the kick.

Irving, with his heart in his throat, watched Westby; the boy, with both
hands raised, was wabbling about, stepping to the right, to the left,
backward, forward; the ends were there in front of him, crouched and
waiting; Collingwood tried to fend them off, but the big tackle rushed
in and upset him, and at the same instant the ball fell into Westby’s
arms—and slipped through them.

One of the ends dropped on the ball, rolled over with it a couple of
times, rolled up on his feet again and was off with it for the St.
Timothy’s goal; he had carried it to the twenty-yard line when
Collingwood pulled him down. St. John’s were streaming down their side
line, shrieking and waving their blue flags; St. Timothy’s stood dazed
and silent.

“Oh, butterfingers!” cried Briggs, stamping his foot.

“Just like Wes—he wouldn’t make a football player in a thousand years!”
exclaimed Windom.

Irving heard the comments; he heard other comments. If St. John’s should
score now! He hoped they wouldn’t; he was sorry enough for Westby. But
St. John’s did score, by a series of furious centre rushes, and their
fullback kicked the goal. And when, fifteen minutes later, the referee
blew his whistle, the game was St. John’s, by that score of six to
nothing.

Irving could understand why some of the St. Timothy’s boys had tears in
their eyes. It was pretty trying even for him to see the triumphant
visitors rush upon the field, toss the members of their team upon their
shoulders, and bear them away exultantly to the athletic house, yelling
and flaunting their flags, while the St. Timothy’s players walked
disconsolately and silently behind them.

It was trying afterwards to stand by and see those blue-bedecked
invaders form into long-linked lines and dance their serpentine of
victory on St. Timothy’s ground. It was trying to stand by and watch
barge after barge bedecked with blue roll away while the occupants
shouted and waved their hats—and left the field to silence and despair.

But still St. Timothy’s did not abandon the scene of their defeat. They
waited loyally in front of the athletic house to welcome and console
their team when it should emerge. Collingwood led the players out, and
the crowd gave them a good one.

Collingwood said, with a smile, though in an unsteady voice, “Much
obliged, fellows,” and waved his hand.

Then the crowd dispersed; slowly they all walked away.

That evening, as Irving was about to leave his room to go down to
supper, a boy brought him a telegram. It was from his brother; it said,—

“We licked them, twelve to six. Feeling fine. Lawrence.”

At the table Irving tried not to appear too happy. He apologized for his
state of mind and told the boys the cause; those who, like Carroll, were
Harvard sympathizers derived a little cheer from the news, and the
others seemed indifferent to it. Westby was not there. The training
table was vacant, and at the other tables were empty chairs where
substitutes on the team had sat. Mrs. Barclay was entertaining the
football players.

“I wish I was breaking training there,” said Carroll to Irving; “she has
the most wonderful food.”

In the discussion of the game there seemed to be little disposition to
blame Westby.

“After all,” said Blake, “he was only a sub, and he never got so very
much practice in handling punts. I don’t think fellows ought to be sore
on him.”

“No, he’s just sore on himself,” said Carroll.

“It’s hard luck, anyhow; except for that one thing he played mighty
well.”

The mail boy passed, leaving a letter for Irving. It was in his uncle’s
handwriting; and his uncle never wrote to him; it was his aunt who kept
him posted on all the news of home. Did this mean that she was ill—or
that some disaster had befallen?

Irving determined that if it was bad news, he would reserve it until he
should be alone; he put the letter in his pocket and waited anxiously
for the meal to end.

When he was again in his room, he tore open the envelope and read this
letter:—

     DEAR IRVING,—I have not helped you and Lawrence much financially. I
     thought it would do you and him no harm to try out your own
     resources. But I always meant to give you a lift whenever it should
     seem wise, and whenever a lift could be most advantageously
     arranged.

     Your father was never able to lay up any money; his work was of a
     kind that did not permit that. But he would always have shared with
     me whatever he had. I have had it in mind to do the same by his
     children. I have sold half the farm—the western half—your half and
     Lawrence’s. There is four thousand dollars in cash for each of you,
     and four thousand on a mortgage for each of you at six per cent.
     You had better draw out of school-teaching as soon as possible and
     study law—if that is still what you most want to do.

     Your aunt is well and sends her love. We are both looking forward
     to seeing you and Lawrence at Christmas.

     Your affectionate uncle,

     ROBERT UPTON.

A flood of warm emotion poured through Irving; his eyes filled. He had
sometimes thought his uncle selfish and narrow—and all the time he had
been working towards this!

Irving wrote his reply; he wrote also to Lawrence. Then he took his
letters down to the Study building, to post them so that they might go
out with the night mail. On his way he passed the Barclay house; it was
all brightly lighted, the sound of laughter and of gay boy voices rang
out through the open windows; the notes of a piano then subdued them,
and there burst out a chorus in the sonorous measured sweep of “Wacht am
Rhein.”

Irving stood for a few moments and listened; his exultant heart was
responsive to that shouted song. Fellows who could sing like that, he
thought, must have trodden disappointment under heel.

An hour later, when Irving sat in his room, the boys who had been
entertained at the Barclays’ came tramping up the stairs. They were
still singing, but they stopped their song before they entered the
dormitory. Irving met them to say good-night—first Dennison and then
Morrill and then Louis Collingwood.

“Have you heard the new song Wes has got off, Mr. Upton?” asked
Dennison.

“No, what’s that?”

“Hit it up, Wes.”

“Oh, choke it off.” Collingwood grinned uneasily.

“Go on, Wes,—strike up. We’ll all join in.”

“Wait till I get my banjo—you don’t mind, do you, Mr. Upton?”

“No. I’d like to hear it.”

So Westby hastened to his room and returned, bearing the instrument; and
all the other boys gathered round, except Collingwood, who stood
sheepishly off at one side. Westby twanged the strings and then to the
accompaniment began,—

    “Across the broad prairies he came from the west,
    With fire in his eye and with brawn on his chest;
    His arms they were strong and his legs they were fleet;
    There was none could outstrip his vanishing feet;
    We made him our captain—what else could we do?
    You ask who he is? Do I hear you say, ‘Who?’”

Then they all came in on the chorus:—

    “He is our Lou, he is our honey-Lou,
      He is our pride and joy;
    He is our Loo-loo, he is our Loo-loo,
      He is our Lou-Lou boy.”

“Silly song!” exclaimed Collingwood with disgust.

“Wes made it up just this evening, at Mrs. Barclay’s,” said Dennison.
“We were all singing, and after a while Wes edged in to the piano and
sprung this on us. Don’t you think it’s a good song?”

“So good that I wish I could furnish inspiration for another,” said
Irving.

Westby joined in the laugh and looked pleased.

“Good-night, everybody,” said Collingwood; he walked away to his room.
The others followed, all except Westby, to whom Irving said,—

“Will you wait a moment? I should like to have a little talk with you.”
He led the boy into his room and pushed forward his armchair.

Westby seated himself with his banjo across his knees and looked at
Irving wonderingly.

“The fellows seem pretty cheerful after their defeat, don’t they?” said
Irving.

A shadow crossed Westby’s face. “They’ve been very decent about it,” he
answered.

Irving put his hand on Westby’s arm.

“Do you know why they’re so decent? It’s because you’ve cheered them up
yourself. Who was the fellow, Westby, that said he didn’t care who might
make his country’s laws if only he might write its songs?”

[Illustration: A SHADOW CROSSED WESTBY’S FACE]

“Oh—no—that’s got nothing to do with me.”

“You needn’t care who makes the touchdowns. Your job is to do something
else. It’s no discredit to you if because of lack of training or
adaptability, you can’t hang on to a ball at a critical moment. There
are plenty of fellows who can do that.—I suppose you don’t see it yet
yourself—but you know the message my brother sent you? I shall tell him
that you got your chance to-day—and took it.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Well, I don’t know how you managed it exactly. But I could see when
those fellows came upstairs just now that you stood better with them
than you ever had done before. It must have been because you showed the
right spirit—and I know by experience, Westby, that it’s awfully hard to
show the right spirit when you’re down.”

There was silence for a few moments.

“I guess I’ve made it hard for you,” said Westby at last, in a low
voice. “You’re different from what I thought you were.”

Irving’s low laugh of exultation sprang from the heart. “Maybe I am—and
maybe you were right about me, too. A fellow changes. A month ago, I was
wondering what use there could ever be in my studying law—trying to
practise, mixing with men—when I couldn’t hold my own with a handful of
boys. For some reason, I don’t feel that way any longer.—Well, that’s
about all I wanted to say to you, Westby.” He stood up. “Good-night.”

Westby rose and shook hands. “Good-night, sir.”

He passed out and quietly closed the door. Irving stood at the window,
gazing beyond the shadowy trees to the dim silver line of the pond,
touched now by the moonlight. There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Irving called.

It was Westby again.

“Oh, Mr. Upton,” he said, “I meant to tell you—I heard at Mr. Barclay’s
how the Freshman game came out; I wish, if you would, you’d send your
brother my congratulations.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night.”

The door closed softly. Irving turned again and pressed his forehead
against the window-pane with a smile. It was a smile not merely of
satisfaction because he had won his way at last, though he was not
indifferent to that; he was happy too because this night he felt he had
come close to Westby.