A TRANSACTION IN BOOKS
“HELLO, Dick, may I use your French dictionary?”
Without waiting for a reply, Tompkins pounced upon the book. It was the
fourth time in the last ten days that he had demanded the use of this
particular book, while on two other occasions during the same period he
had found it convenient to prepare his English versions at Melvin’s
desk. If this had been all, Melvin would not have thought of objecting.
To some boys ownership in books is but a continued series of lendings
and borrowings, mislayings, losings, and findings. In Tompkins, however,
this borrowing habit was of sudden and violent development. Similar
tales of him had come during the past fortnight from other rooms.
“Haven’t you any books at all?” demanded the senior.
“A few,” replied Tompkins, with his nose in the dictionary.
“Well, haven’t you a French dictionary?”
“If I had, do you suppose I’d want to use yours?”
“You certainly had one once. What’s become of it?”
“Gone,” replied Tompkins, resignedly, turning back to the B’s to find
the meaning of a word which he had looked up only a moment before,—“like
the meaning of that long adjective I just looked up.”
“Can’t you find it?”
“Maybe.”
“When did you use it last?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, where did you see it last?”
“At the second-hand bookstore.”
Dick stared. “Did some one steal it, or did you lose it?”
“Neither,” replied the laconic Tompkins.
“Then you must have sold it.”
“Yes, I suppose I must have sold it,” sighed Tompkins. “Any more
questions?” he asked after an interval, as Melvin gazed and wondered. “I
really ought to do this reading, you know. I rather flunked on it
yesterday, and I don’t like to repeat the performance to-day.”
There was a half hour of silence in the room. Then Melvin, squinting
furtively out of the corner of his eyes, caught Tompkins gazing out of
the window.
“You ought to have borrowed of me,” said Dick, quietly. “You could have
saved the books, anyway.”
Tompkins shook his head. “I don’t like to borrow, though I may have to
do it yet.”
“What’s become of your term allowance?”
“Gone to those confounded little lambs that Bosworth sheared,” said
Tompkins, angrily, throwing off his pretense of indifference. “Eddy
wasn’t the only fool, by any means. First one would come to me and then
another, and every one of them would put up a mournful whine, and
promise never, never to do such a thing again, and hold out his hand for
his money. They seemed to think that Bosworth was having the games just
to give them experience and teach them profitable lessons, and that I
was his agent to pay them back when they promised not to do it again. I
wasn’t very careful about the money, I suppose, and when I finally shut
down on the thing, a good part of my own was gone. Then Dinsmore took
the rest for a baseball subscription which I’d promised to pay early. He
left me just seventy-five cents. Since then the books have been going,
and it’s a month yet to pay-day. I have been a fool.”
With this last statement Melvin mentally concurred. He had maintained
from the beginning that the only proper way of dealing with Bosworth was
to maul him until he disgorged, and his first impulse was to tell
Tompkins that it served him right for having recourse to questionable
methods. But wholesome respect for the generosity of the boy and
sympathy with him in his present predicament, effectually prevented any
such retort, and turned the whole force of his disapproval against the
original offender.
“For straight meanness, that Bosworth is the limit!” he exclaimed, with
eyes aflame with indignation. “He ought to be fired this very minute!”
“He isn’t much of a fellow, I think myself,” answered Tompkins, more
calmly, “but we can’t do anything about it. The firing isn’t in our
hands, or he’d go, and a good many fellows would stay who now have to
say good-by pretty abruptly. It isn’t Bosworth that I’m thinking of, but
how I’m going to get through the next month.”
“Why don’t you write the whole story home to your father?” said Dick, to
whom the straightforward way always appealed.
Tompkins smiled wisely. “And have him write back hot foot to Grim, and
want to know what kind of a school it is in which such ‘scandalous
performances’ go on under the teachers’ eyes. And Grim would hunt it to
the ground like a setter after a rabbit! No, I thank you,—not that!”
A pause.—Then the inexorable recitation bell broke in upon them. “How
mournful that bell sounds when you haven’t your lesson,” groaned Tommy,
as he picked up his book and started for the French recitation. “It’s
like the thing they ring at funerals. Another flunk for me to-day! I’ll
be dropped by the end of the term, if I don’t get this business off my
nerves.”
“Come in after supper, Tommy,” shouted Dick at the door, “and we’ll talk
it over with Varrell. His head is longer than mine, and he may have
something to suggest.”
That evening the three gathered before the depleted bookshelves in
Tompkins’s room in solemn conclave. All agreed that to write to Mr.
Tompkins would be equivalent to carrying the facts to the Principal.
“Can’t you write to your mother?” suggested Melvin.
“That would be more dangerous still,” answered Tompkins, dolefully.
“She’d be sure I’d gone to the bad.”
“Haven’t you a brother or an uncle or a cousin that you could try?”
asked Wrenn. “I’ve money enough myself. I could furnish you what you
want as easily as can be, but I have to give an account of all I spend,
and of course I can’t lie about it.”
“There’s Uncle George in Chicago,” said Tompkins, brightening. “I’d
thought of him, but he’s a bit risky, too. He’d help me quick enough,
but I don’t know what else he might do.”
“That’s the way out,” said Varrell, authoritatively. “You’ve got to take
some risk. Just tell him the whole story frankly, and explain why you
don’t want to write to your father, and I think he’ll be square with
you; uncles usually are pretty generously disposed. In the meantime
don’t sell any more books. I’ll lend you all you need.”
To this course the council agreed. Tompkins wrote the letter and waited
six miserable days for a reply, which arrived by the last mail of a
certain Saturday early in March. The date was important to Tompkins, for
it was the day which brought relief from anxiety to a very worried and
unhappy boy. There was a check in the letter, drawn for a larger amount
than he had requested; there was also some strong, sensible advice; and
finally there was a pledge to be signed and returned before the check
was cashed, binding Master Tompkins not to play again during the course
of his education. This the boy signed with eagerness, having already of
his own accord made up his mind to this very course. With the pledge
deposited in the post-office, and the check safe in his pocket-book
ready to be cashed on Monday morning, with a feeling of relief warming
his heart as the bright hearth-fire drives the chill from weary bones,
Tommy went to bed that night as nearly serious and grateful as he had
ever been in his life.
For another reason the date was important. On the night of this
Saturday, or somewhere between the hours of six P.M. on Saturday and two
P.M. on Sunday, the registrar’s safe in the basement of Sibley was
broken into and plundered.
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