Left Tackle Thayer

CHAPTER II

CAP­TAIN INNES RE­CEIVES

“What's that aw­ful noise?” asked Clint star­tled­ly, look­ing up from his book.

It was the evening of the sec­ond day of school and Clint and Amy Byrd were prepar­ing lessons at op­po­site sides of the green-​topped ta­ble in Num­ber 14 Tor­rence.

“That,” replied Amy, lean­ing back un­til his chair protest­ed and view­ing his room-​mate un­der the shade of the drop-​light, “is mu­sic.”

“Mu­sic!” Clint lis­tened in­cred­ulous­ly. From the next room, by way of opened win­dows and tran­soms, came the most lugubri­ous wails he thought he had ev­er lis­tened to. “It--it's a fid­dle, isn't it?” he de­mand­ed.

Amy nod­ded. “More re­spect­ful­ly, a vi­olin. More cor­rect­ly a vi­ol-_din._ (The joke is not new.) What you are lis­ten­ing to with such ev­ident de­light are the sweet strains of Pen­ny Durkin's vi­olin.” Amy looked at the alarm clock which dec­orat­ed a cor­ner of his chif­fonier. “Pen­ny is twelve min­utes ahead of time. He's not sup­posed to play dur­ing study-​hour, you see, and un­less I'm much mis­tak­en he will be so in­formed be­fore the night is much--”

“_Hey, Pen­ny! Cut it out, old top_!”

From some­where down the cor­ri­dor the an­guished wail float­ed, fol­lowed an in­stant lat­er by sounds coun­ter­feit­ing the howl­ing of an un­hap­py dog. Threats and pleas min­gled.

“Pen­ny! For the love of Mike!”

“Set your watch back, Pen­ny!”

“Shut up, you id­iot! Study's not over!”

“Call an of­fi­cer, please!”

But Pen­ning­ton Durkin was mak­ing too much noise on his in­stru­ment to hear the re­mon­strances at first, and it was not un­til some im­pa­tient neigh­bour sal­lied forth and pound­ed fran­ti­cal­ly at the por­tal of Num­ber 13 that the wail­ing ceased. Then,

“What is it?” asked Durkin mild­ly.

“It's on­ly ten min­utes to nine, Pen­ny. Your clock's fast again. Shut up or we'll kill you!”

“Oh!” said Pen­ny sur­pris­ed­ly. “Are you sure? I set my watch--”

“Oh, for­get it! You say that ev­ery night,” was the wea­ried re­sponse. “How the dick­ens do you think any­one's go­ing to study with that noise go­ing on?”

“I'm very sor­ry, re­al­ly,” re­spond­ed Pen­ny, “If I'd known--”

“You nev­er do know, Pen­ny!” The youth out­side strode back to his room and slammed the door and qui­et pre­vailed once more. Amy smiled.

“Poor Pen­ny,” he said. “He suf­fers much in the cause of Art. I refuse to study any more. Close up shop, Clint, and let's talk. Now that you've been with us a whole day, what do you think of us? Do you ap­prove of this in­sti­tu­tion of learn­ing, old man?”

“I think I'm go­ing to like it,” replied Clint sober­ly.

“I do hope so,” mur­mured Amy anx­ious­ly. “Still, any lit­tle changes you'd like made--”

“Well, you asked me, didn't you?” laughed Clint. “Be­sides, how can I help but like it when I am hon­oured by be­ing roomed with you?”

“Sar­casm!” hissed Amy. “Time's up!” He slammed his book shut, tossed it on a pile at his el­bow, yawned and jumped from his chair. “Let's go vis­it­ing. What do you say? Come along and I'll in­ter­doo­dle you to some of our promi­nent crim­inals. Find your cap and fol­low me.”

“I wish,” said Amy, as they clat­tered down the stairs in the wake of sev­er­al oth­er boys who had lin­gered no longer than they af­ter nine o'clock had struck, “I wish you had made the Fifth Form, Clint.”

“So do I,” was the re­ply. “I could have if they'd stretched a point.”

“Um; yes,” mused the oth­er. “Stretched a point. Now that's some­thing I nev­er could make out, Clint.”

“What!”

“Why, how you can stretch a point. The dic­tio­nary de­scribes a point as 'that which has po­si­tion but no mag­ni­tude.' Seems to me it must be very dif­fi­cult to get hold of a thing with no mag­ni­tude, and, of course, you'd have to get hold of it to stretch it, wouldn't you? Now, if you said stretch a line or stretch a cir­cle--”

“That's what you'll need if you don't shut up,” laughed Clint.

“A cir­cle?”

“No, a stretch­er!”

“What a hor­ri­ble pun,” mourned Amy. “Say, sup­pose we drop in on Jack Innes?”

“Sup­pose we do,” replied Clint cheer­ful­ly. “Who is he?”

“Foot­ball cap­tain, you ig­no­ra­mus. Maybe if you don't act fresh and he takes a lik­ing to you he will re­sign and let you be cap­tain.”

“Won't it look--well, sort of fun­ny?” asked Clint doubt­ful­ly as they passed along the Bow.

“What? You be­ing cap­tain?”

“No, our go­ing--I mean _my_ go­ing to see him, Won't he think I'm try­ing to--to swipe?”

“Pop­py­cock! Jack's a par­tic­ular friend of mine. You don't have to tell him you want a place on the team, do you? Be­sides, there'll like­ly be half a dozen oth­ers there. Here we are; one flight.”

They turned in the first en­trance of Hensey and climbed the stairs. Innes's room, like Clint's, faced the stair-​well, be­ing al­so Num­ber 14, and from be­hind the closed door came a ba­bel of voic­es.

“Full house tonight,” ob­served Amy, knock­ing thun­der­ous­ly. But the knock­ing wasn't heard in­side and, af­ter a mo­ment, Amy turned the knob and walked in, fol­lowed by Clint. Near­ly a dozen boys were crowd­ed in the room and each of the two small beds sagged dan­ger­ous­ly un­der the weight it held.

“We knocked,” said Amy, “but you hood­lums are mak­ing so much noise that--”

“Hi, Amy! How's the boy?” called a youth whose po­si­tion fac­ing the door al­lowed him to dis­cov­er the new­com­ers. Heads turned and oth­er greet­ings fol­lowed. It was ev­ident to Clint that his room-​mate was a pop­ular chap, for ev­ery­one seemed thor­ough­ly glad to see him.

“Come here, Amy,” called a big fel­low who was sprawled in a Mor­ris chair. Amy good-​na­tured­ly obeyed the sum­mons and the big fel­low pulled up a leg of the oth­er boy's trousers. “They're grey, fel­lows,” he an­nounced sor­row­ful­ly. “Some­one's gone and died, and Amy's in mourn­ing!”

“Grey!” ex­claimed an­oth­er. “Nev­er. Amy, tell me it isn't true!”

“Shut up! I want to in­ter­doo­dle my most bo­som friend, Mr. Clin­ton Thay­er, of Vay-​gin-​yah, sah! Clint, take off your hat.”

The mer­ri­ment ceased and the oc­cu­pants of the room got to their feet as best they might and those with­in reach shook hands.

“That large lump over there,” in­di­cat­ed Amy, “is Innes. He's one of your hosts. The oth­er one is Mr. Still; in the cor­ner of the bed; the in­tel­li­gent-​look­ing youth. The oth­ers don't mat­ter.”

“Glad to know you, Thay­er,” said Jack Innes in a deep, jovial voice. “Hope you can find a place to sit down. I guess that bed near you will hold one more with­out giv­ing way.”

Clint some­what em­bar­rass­ed­ly crowd­ed on to a cor­ner of the bed and Amy perched him­self on an arm of the Mor­ris chair. A small­ish, clever-​look­ing fel­low across the room said: “You're a punk in­tro­duc­er, Amy. Thay­er, my name's Mar­vin, and this chap is Hall and the next one is Ed­wards, and Still you know, and then comes Rud­die, and Black--”

“Red and Black,” in­ter­po­lat­ed Amy.

“And next to Innes is Lan­ders--”

“Oh, for­get it, Mar­vin,” ad­vised Still. “Thay­er won't re­mem­ber. Names don't mat­ter, any­way.”

“Some names,” re­tort­ed Mar­vin, “have lit­tle sig­nif­icance, yours amongst them. I did the best I could for you, Thay­er. Re­mem­ber that. What's the good word, Amy?”

“I have no news to re­late,” was the grave re­sponse, “save that Jor­dan ob­trud­ed his shin­ing cra­ni­um as we came in and re­quest­ed me to in­form you fel­lows that un­less there was less noise up here--”

Jeers greet­ed that fic­tion. “I love your phras­es, Amy,” said Mar­vin. “'Shin­ing cra­ni­um' is great”

“Oh, Amy is one fine lit­tle phras­er,” said Innes. “Re­mem­ber his theme last year, fel­lows? How did it go, Amy? Let me see. Oh! 'The west­ern­ing sun sank slow­ly in­to the pur­ple void of twi­light, a bur­nished cop­per disk be­yond the earth's hori­zon!'”

“I nev­er!” cried Amy in­dig­nant­ly.

“He loves to call a foot­ball an 'il­lu­sive spheroid,'” chuck­led an­oth­er chap.

“So it is,” as­sert­ed Amy ve­he­ment­ly. “I know, be­cause I tried to play with one once!”

“I'll bet a great lit­tle foot­ball play­er was lost when you for­sook the grid­iron for the--the field of schol­ar­ly en­deav­our,” said Tom Hall.

“He's caught it, too!” groaned the youth be­side him, Steve Ed­wards. “Guess I'll take him home.”

“You're not talk­ing that way yet, are you, Thay­er?” asked Jack Innes so­lic­itous­ly.

“I don't think so,” replied Clint with a smile.

“You will soon­er or lat­er, though. The fel­low who roomed with Amy last year got so he couldn't make him­self un­der­stood in this coun­try and had to go to Japan.”

“Chi­na,” cor­rect­ed Amy, “Chi­na, the Land of the Chink and the chop-​stick.”

“There he goes!” moaned Still.

“What I haven't heard ex­plained yet,” said Steve Ed­wards, “is what's hap­pened to Amy's glad socks. Why the so­bri­ety, Amy?”

“Wouldst hear the sweet, sad sto­ry?”

“Wouldst.”

“Then give me your kind at­ten­tion and I willst a tale un­fold. You see, it's like this. Clint there can tell you that just the oth­er day I was a thing of beau­ty. My slen­der an­kles were sheer and silken de­lights. But--and here's the weepy place, fel­lows--when I dis­robed I dis­cov­ered that the warmth of the weath­er had af­fect­ed the dye in those glad­some gar­ments and my lit­tle footies were like un­to the ed­ible pur­ple beet of com­merce. And I paid eighty-​five cents a pair for those socks, too. I--I'm hav­ing them washed.”

When the laugh­ter had ceased, Rud­die, who seemed a se­ri­ous-​mind­ed youth, be­gan a sto­ry of an un­cle of his who had con­tract­ed blood-​poi­son­ing from the dye in his stock­ings. What ul­ti­mate­ly hap­pened to the un­cle Clint nev­er dis­cov­ered, for the oth­ers very rude­ly broke in on Rud­die's rem­inis­cences and the con­ver­sa­tion be­came gen­er­al and var­ied. The boy next to Clint, whose name he learned lat­er was Freer, po­lite­ly in­quired as to how Clint liked Brim­field and whether he played foot­ball. To the lat­ter ques­tion Clint con­fid­ed that he did, al­though prob­ably not well enough to stand much of a chance here.

“Oh, you can't tell,” replied Freer en­cour­ag­ing­ly. “Come out for prac­tice to­mor­row and see. We're got a coach here that can do won­ders with be­gin­ners.”

“Of course I mean to try,” said Clint. “I reck­on you wear togs, don't you, when you re­port?”

“Yes, come dressed to play. You'll get a work­out for a week or so, any­way. Three-​thir­ty is the time. You won't feel lone­some. We've got more fel­lows here this year than we ev­er had and I guess there'll be a gang of new can­di­dates. Got a lot of last year's 'var­si­ty play­ers left, too, and we ought to be able to turn out a pret­ty fair team.”

“Where does Cap­tain Innes play?” Clint asked

“Cen­tre, and he's a peach. Mar­vin, over there, is first-​string quar­ter this year. Ed­wards will be one of our ends and Hall will have right guard cinched, I think.”

“And where do you play?” Clint in­quired.

“Half, when I play,” laughed the oth­er. “I'm go­ing to make a good fight for it this year. How'd you know I did play, though?”

“I--just thought so,” said Clint. “You sort of look it, you know.”

That seemed to please Freer. “Well, I've been at it three years,” he said, “and this is my last chance.”

“I hope you make it.”

“Thanks. Same to you! Well, I must get along.”

The gath­er­ing was break­ing up. Most of the fel­lows were care­ful to bid Clint good night as they went and sev­er­al told him to get Amy to bring him around to see them. Cap­tain Innes crowd­ed his way through the con­fu­sion of vis­itors and fur­ni­ture and sought Clint where he stood aside in the cor­ner.

“I be­lieve you play foot­ball, Thay­er?” he said in­quir­ing­ly.

“Yes, some.”

“Well, you're mod­est, any­way,” the big cen­tre laughed. “Don't over­do it, though; it doesn't pay. What's your po­si­tion?”

“I played tack­le at home.”

“Well, you come out to­mor­row and show your goods, Thay­er. We need all the tal­ent we can get. Hope to see you do splen­did­ly. Good night. Aw­ful­ly glad to have met you. Good night, Amy. Hope those socks will come out all right.”

“They'll nev­er be the same,” replied Amy sad­ly. “Their pris­tine splen­dour--”

“Get out of here, Amy! You re­mind me un­pleas­ant­ly of to­mor­row's En­glish and the fact that I haven't looked at it yet!” And Freer, who was a rather husky youth, pushed Amy in­to the cor­ri­dor with­out cer­emo­ny.

On the way back to Tor­rence Clint asked cu­ri­ous­ly: “How do you sup­pose Innes knew I played, Amy?”

“Oh, he's a dis­cern­ing brute,” re­spond­ed the oth­er care­less­ly.

“But he said he _be­lieved_ I did. That sounds as if some­one had told him. Did you?”

“Well,” replied the oth­er hes­itant­ly, “now that you men­tion it, sum­mon it, as it were, to my at­ten­tion, or, should I say, force it on my no­tice; or, per­haps, arouse my slum­ber­ing mem­ory--”

“Mean­ing you did?”

“I might have.”

“When?”

“'S af­ter­noon. We met by chance. Ca­su­al­ly I men­tioned the fact that you were prob­ably one of the nifti­est lit­tle line­men that ev­er broke through the--er--stub­born de­fence of a des­per­ate en­emy--”

“You id­iot!”

“And that, if prop­er­ly en­cour­aged, you would very like­ly be will­ing to lend your help­ful as­sis­tance to the Dear Old Team. And he said: 'Bless you, Amy, for them glad tid­ings. All is not lost, With Clint Thay­er to help us, vic­to­ry may once more perch up­on our pen­nant!' Or maybe it was 'ban­ner.'”

“Hon­est, Amy,” plead­ed Clint, “what did you say?”

“On­ly that you were room­ing with me and that I'd heard you say you, played and that I meant to bring you around to see him this evening.”

“And he said?”

“He said 'Of course, bring him along.'”

“Oh,” mur­mured Clint

“Just the re­mark I was about to make,” de­clared Amy.