Left Tackle Thayer

CHAPTER XVII

A STRANGER IN­TER­RUPTS

He wore a grey flan­nel suit, a cap to match, and rub­ber-​soled tan shoes. It was doubt­less the lat­ter which ac­count­ed for his un­sus­pect­ed ap­pear­ance on the scene. His brown eyes trav­elled from one to an­oth­er of the lit­tle group in­quir­ing­ly.

“I hope I don't in­trude,” he ob­served po­lite­ly.

“I'm afraid you do, a bit,” re­spond­ed Amy calm­ly.

“They're two against one!” cried Dreer shril­ly. “I didn't do a thing to them! He--he knocked me down, and cut my face, and--”

“Easy, easy!” The stranger held up a hand. “I thought from what I saw that this gen­tle­man was quite neu­tral. How about it?” He turned to Clint.

“Yes, sir,” an­swered the lat­ter.

“I thought so. Then it's you two who are en­gaged in this en­counter, eh? I pre­sume it's a gen­tle­man's af­fair! All fair and ship-​shape?”

“Quite with­in the rules of civilised war­fare, sir,” as­sured Amy with a smile.

“I see. In that case don't let me de­tain you. Pro­ceed with the mat­ter in hand. Un­less, that is, I may act as me­di­ator? Is the--the ques­tion in dis­pute one which is open to ar­bi­tra­tion?”

“I'm afraid not,” an­swered Amy. “The fact is, sir, this fel­low has a lamentable habit of speak­ing dis­re­spect­ful­ly of his school. I have warned him that I didn't like it and he per­sists. What I--”

“It isn't that, sir!” cried Dreer pas­sion­ate­ly. “He says I--I broke Durkin's fid­dle, and I didn't, and the rest is on­ly an ex­cuse to--to fight me! He hasn't any right--”

“Dreer!” protest­ed Amy. “I've ex­plained, even in­sist­ed that the in­ci­dent of the vi­olin has noth­ing to do with this--er--salu­tary pun­ish­ment I am in­flict­ing. I wish you wouldn't con­fuse things so!”

The stranger grinned. “Seems to me,” he said, “all that is nec­es­sary then is for the gen­tle­man with the en­san­guined cheek to with­draw what­ev­er deroga­to­ry re­marks he may have in­ju­di­cious­ly used. What do you think?” He ap­pealed po­lite­ly to Clint.

“Yes, sir, I--I sup­pose so,” Clint agreed.

“That's so,” said Amy, “but he is al­so un­der treat­ment for lapse of mem­ory, sir, or per­haps I should say for hes­itan­cy of speech. I am hop­ing that present­ly he will re­mem­ber who did break the vi­olin and tell us. Have we your per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue, sir?”

“Hm.” The man's eyes twin­kled ap­pre­cia­tive­ly as he re­turned Amy's in­gen­uous re­gard. “I see that my of­fer of good of­fices was pre­ma­ture. Pray let the ar­gu­ment pro­ceed. With your per­mis­sion I'll stand by and see that ev­ery­thing is as it should be.”

Dreer's amaze­ment was lu­di­crous. “You--you mean you're go­ing to let him knock me down again?” he de­mand­ed in­cred­ulous­ly.

“Seems to me,” replied the stranger ju­di­cial­ly, “it's up to you whether he knocks you down. Why don't you turn the ta­bles and do the knock­ing down your­self? It's a beau­ti­ful morn­ing you've cho­sen, gen­tle­men.”

“I won't fight, I tell you!” screamed Dreer. “I'll tell Fer­nald of this and you'll all be ex­pelled!”

“We won't wor­ry about that yet, Dreer,” said Amy. “Come on, now. Let's get through with this.”

“Keep away from me!” Dreer cried. Then he ap­pealed to the stranger. “Make him let me alone, won't you, sir, please? I--I told him I'd do any­thing he said!”

“Oh, did you?” asked the man. “Then hold on a bit. What is it you want him to do, you chap in the shirt-​sleeves?”

“I want him to ac­knowl­edge that he has been ter­ri­bly mis­tak­en about the school, for one thing.”

“You do ac­knowl­edge that, don't you?” asked the man.

Dreer nod­ded al­most ea­ger­ly. Amy viewed him doubt­ful­ly.

“Per­haps it would be well for him to state that he con­sid­ers Brim­field Acade­my to be, to the best of his knowl­edge, the finest school in the world.”

“I--I do think so,” agreed Dreer sul­len­ly. “I was just fool­ing.”

“In fact,” pur­sued Amy, “com­pared to Claflin School, Brim­field is as a gem of purest ray to a--a peb­ble, Dreer? You are con­vinced of that, are you not?”

“I sup­pose so.”

“On­ly--sup­pose, Dreer? Couldn't you be ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain?”

“Yes, I--I'm cer­tain.”

“Fine! Now, in re­gard to that vi­olin, Dreer, which, you know, has noth­ing to do with our re­cent al­ter­ca­tion. Could you find it con­ve­nient to tell us who sneaked in­to Durkin's room and cracked it?”

“No, I couldn't,” mut­tered Dreer.

“You see, sir?” Amy ap­pealed to the stranger. “Mem­ory still pret­ty bad!”

“Hm, yes, I see. You think--ah--”

“Ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain, sir.”

“Then, per­haps, a lit­tle more--treat­ment--”

“My idea ex­act­ly, sir!” Amy ad­vanced to­ward Dreer again, hands up. Dreer looked about at the un­re­lent­ing faces, and,

“I'll tell!” he cried. “I did it. Durkin hit me. You were there; you saw him!” He ap­pealed to Clint. “And--and I told him I'd get even. So--so I did!” He looked de­fi­ant­ly about him. “I warned him.”

Amy nod­ded and reached for his coat. The stranger held it for him and hand­ed him his cap.

“Thank you, sir,” said Amy. “That's all, Dreer. You may go.”

“I--I'll get you in­to trou­ble for this, Byrd,” called Dreer as he moved away. “You needn't think I'm through with you, you big bul­ly!”

Amy made no re­sponse. The stranger was smil­ing amus­ed­ly at the two boys who re­mained, flick­ing his cane in and out of the fall­en leaves be­side the fence. “Ev­ery­thing quite sat­is­fac­to­ry now?” he in­quired.

“Yes, sir, thank you,” replied Amy.

“You have a very di­rect way of get­ting re­sults,” con­tin­ued the oth­er. “Might I in­quire your name?”

“Byrd, sir. And this is Thay­er.”

“De­light­ed to know you both. Mind if I stroll along with you? I'm an old boy my­self, Byrd. Used to be here some five years ago. My name, by the way, is De­tweil­er.”

“Oh!” said Amy. “You're go­ing to help coach, aren't you, sir?”

“Yes, that's what I'm here for. Are you play­ing?”

“No, but Thay­er is. He's on the sec­ond, that is. I hope you don't think we do this sort of thing reg­ular­ly, Mr. De­tweil­er.”

“No, I sus­pect­ed that it was some­thing rather ex­tra,” replied the oth­er dri­ly. “Think that he will--What's his name, by the way?”

“Har­mon Dreer.”

“Think he will make trou­ble for you, Byrd?”

Amy shrugged. “Not with fac­ul­ty, I guess. He wouldn't dare. He may try to get back at me some oth­er way, though. I'm not wor­ry­ing. When did you get here, sir?”

“This morn­ing, on the eight-​some­thing. Went to a house in the vil­lage that George Robey wrote me about and found a room, and then start­ed out for a stroll and broke in on your in­no­cent amuse­ment. So far I've found the old place quite in­ter­est­ing!” And Mr. De­tweil­er chuck­led.

“Hope you'll like it well enough to stay a good while, sir,” said Amy.

“Thanks. Hel­lo! There's a new hall since I was here! What do you call it?”

“The last one on the left, sir? That's Billings. I think it was built about three years ago.”

“Aside from that things look about as they used to,” mused the oth­er. Then he turned to Clint. “So you're play­ing on the sec­ond, Thay­er? How are you get­ting on? What do you play?”

“Pret­ty well, sir. I play tack­le. I've had a bum knee for a week or so, though.”

“How's the 'var­si­ty shap­ing?”

“Very well, I'd say. We ex­pect to lick Claflin again, sir.”

“Do, eh? That's good. Foot­ball at Brim­field didn't amount to a great deal when I was here, but the old school's turned out some good elevens since then. Well, I'm glad to have met you chaps. Some day when you've got noth­ing bet­ter to do look me up in the vil­lage. I'm at Stor­er's, a lit­tle white house op­po­site the store and post of­fice. Aw­ful­ly glad to have you. And--er--by the way, if you need ev­idence, Byrd, in this lit­tle mat­ter, call on me. Very glad to tes­ti­fy to the best of my knowl­edge. Good-​bye.”

Mr. De­tweil­er swung off in the di­rec­tion of the gym­na­si­um and the two boys, con­tin­uing to­ward Main Hall, looked af­ter him in­ter­est­ed­ly.

“Gee, he's built for work, isn't he?” mused Amy. “Played tack­le, didn't he?”

“Yes, and he was a dandy. Bet you he will do a lot of good here, Amy.”

“He seems a lev­el-​head­ed sort,” replied Amy. “I liked the way he mind­ed his own busi­ness back there. Lots of men would have hopped around and got ex­cit­ed and said, 'Boys! Boys! This will nev­er do!' He just made up his mind that ev­ery­thing was all right and said 'Go to it!'”

“I'm glad he came,” ac­knowl­edged Clint. “I didn't want to see Dreer get any more, Amy.”

“He need­ed a lot more,” replied Amy grim­ly. “Per­son­al­ly, I was a bit sor­ry he fessed up so quick. I was hop­ing for an­oth­er whack at him!”

“You're a blood­thirsty kid,” mar­velled Clint.

“I am?” Amy seemed sur­prised. “Don't you be­lieve it, Clint. I'm as easy-​go­ing and soft-​heart­ed as a suck­ling dove, what­ev­er that is. On­ly, when some low-​life like Dreer says this is a rot­ten school I don't care for it. And when he does a trick like the one he did with poor old Pen­ny's fid­dle I want to fight. Not, though, that you could call that lit­tle af­fair a fight,” he added re­gret­ful­ly. “Why, the sil­ly chump wouldn't even guard!”

“Do you reck­on he will tell Josh?” asked Clint un­easi­ly.

“No, I don't. He wouldn't care to have Josh know about the vi­olin busi­ness. What he will do is to put ar­senic in our tea some day, I guess.”

“That's all right, then,” laughed Clint. “I don't drink tea.”

“Or, maybe, he'll drop a bomb through the tran­som some dark night.”

“We'll keep it closed.”

“Well, if I have to teach him be­haviour again I won't stop so soon,” said Amy. “I'm not sure I don't wish he _would_ try some trick with me. I--do you know, Clint, I don't think I quite like that fel­low!”

“Hon­est? I'd nev­er have sus­pect­ed it,” Clint laughed. “Say, how many cuts did you take?”

“Two. And there's go­ing to be trou­ble. But it was worth it!”

There was trou­ble, and Amy had to vis­it Mr. Fer­nald the next day and ex­plain, as best he could, why he had missed two recita­tions. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Amy couldn't con­fide to the prin­ci­pal the na­ture of the busi­ness which had in­ter­fered with his at­ten­dance at class­es, and his plea of in­dis­po­si­tion was not kind­ly re­ceived. Still, he got off with noth­ing more se­ri­ous than a warn­ing, and thought him­self ex­treme­ly for­tu­nate. Clint, who had cut on­ly one “recit,” re­ceived mere­ly a rep­ri­mand from “Ho­race” and an in­vi­ta­tion to make up the lost work.

Amy con­fid­ed to Pen­ny that evening that he and Dreer had had a mis­un­der­stand­ing re­gard­ing the re­spect due from a stu­dent to his school and that Dreer had sus­tained a cut cheek. And Pen­ny nod­ded un­der­stand­ing­ly and said: “Much obliged, Byrd. I wish I might have seen it.”

“Yes, it would have done you a lot of good,” replied Amy cheer­ful­ly.