FRICK IS CALLED AWAY
That momentous Saturday dawned crisp and bright. Yardley Hall School
was early afoot and there was, from the first awakening, a flood
of contagious excitement, repressed during chapel but let loose
immediately afterwards. Breakfast, for the average boy was hilarious,
for the two dozen or so fellows who would or might meet Broadwood in
the afternoon it was a trying ordeal at which the usual viands had lost
their flavor and where swallowing was often a painful task. Fortunately
for both faculty and students, experience had taught the futility of
holding the usual Saturday recitations on the morning of the Broadwood
contest, and all but a very few were abandoned.
Toby awoke in excellent spirits that day. After all, a fellow can’t
have everything he wants, and here was a corking morning, the big game
at hand and Yardley trained to the moment; and Toby concluded that he
had no grouch coming to him! Besides, if playing on the School Team
meant being in such a state of mind as Arnold was in, why, one was
much better off it! For Arnold had a horrible case of stage-fright.
He fidgeted and gloomed and was alternately a pest and a subject for
the deepest sympathy. Toby had but one recitation, at eleven, and so,
after breakfast, he set himself the task of keeping Arnold from jumping
into the river or biting holes in the pavement. A walk seemed the best
medicine, and the two strolled down to the tennis courts and watched
there awhile and then across the field――Toby tossing his cap over the
cross-bar of the south goal for good-luck――and went upstream along the
river bank. Of course Arnold talked nothing but football, and Toby let
him chatter to his heart’s content. Talking appeared to make Arnold
less glum. Finally they struck inland by the golf links and dodged
balls for a half-mile on the way back, reaching Whitson again at about
ten, unaware that a visitor had called and, finding Toby absent, had
gone his way again without leaving his card.
Arnold wandered off after a few minutes and Toby tried to prime himself
a little for the coming recitation. Then, just before eleven, he
clattered downstairs and over to Oxford, pausing once or twice to
hold jerky conversation with excited friends. Followed a harrowing
half-hour, harrowing for Mr. McIntyre, otherwise known as “Kilts,” the
mathematics instructor, and for a roomful of restless and, for the
nonce, surprisingly stupid boys. There was an audible sigh of relief
at dismissal, a sigh that swelled to a shout as the fellows gained
the doorway and piled out onto the sunlit steps of the old granite
building. Toby lingered to talk to Steve Lippman a minute, and there
Billy Tarrant, the assistant manager of the School Team, found him
after a long search. Tarrant pushed his way through the crowd and
grabbed Toby’s arm.
“You’re wanted in commons, Tucker,” he announced. “Get a move on!”
Toby hung back. “What for?” he asked. “Who wants me?”
“Mr. Lyle. I don’t know what for. Something about the team. Come on!
I’ve been hunting you for half an hour.”
“Oh! Well, all right.” Toby followed obediently, wondering nevertheless.
Half-way, a simple explanation presented itself. Perhaps the Yardley
fellow who was to have handled the chain in the game couldn’t serve, and
they were going to let him do it. Toby concluded that this was his lucky
day after all. The dining-room doors were closed, but Tarrant thrust
open the nearer one and pushed Toby inside. The First Team crowd were
seated around the training table. Mr. Lyle was talking and Tarrant and
Toby trod on their tiptoes down the length of the room. Andy Ryan arose
and noiselessly set chairs for the new arrivals, and Toby seated himself
gingerly, aware that many of the gathering had glanced at him curiously
and that Arnold’s countenance was one big exclamation point! Then,
between the heads of those near him, he caught a glimpse of George
Tubb’s face, and George was looking at him and making silent words with
his lips that Toby couldn’t read. He shook his head helplessly and tried
to listen to the coach. Mr. Lyle was going over his instructions for the
battle in a very quiet tone. Now and then he asked a question and some
one answered, once or twice wrongly. But Toby, consumed by curiosity,
heard little of the discourse. Even when the manager wheeled a
blackboard over and the coach made circles and straight lines and wavy
lines with a piece of chalk, and every one else watched with almost
painful attention and in perfectly soggy silence, Toby just kept right
on wondering why he was there. For an outsider to be present during
these mystic rites was absolutely unheard of! For a wild, breathless
moment the idea came to him that Doctor Collins had relented and that he
had been reinstated on the team. But that was too improbable, too absurd
for credence! Besides, there was Roy Frick over there, looking
supercilious and self-important.
Then the coach stopped talking, the blackboard was moved back to the
wall and there was a great scraping of chairs. And almost at the same
moment the waiters came in with loaded trays and a cold lunch was set
on the table, big platters of sandwiches and dishes of plain cake and
pitchers of steaming hot cocoa and of milk and bowls of oranges, and
every one began helping himself and eating where he sat or stood. Every
one, that is, but Toby. Toby sat where he had been put and looked on in
puzzlement. Or he did until the coach remembered him and, a sandwich in
one hand and a cup of cocoa in the other, came to him.
“No appetite, Tucker?” he asked cheerfully. “That won’t do. Better try
some of this hot cocoa and worry a couple of sandwiches down. I guess
I know how you feel, my boy, but there’s no call to be nervous.”
“No, sir,” gulped Toby. “I――I’m not nervous, Mr. Lyle. I――――”
“That’s right! Wade in and get some food then. Glad you got back to us,
Tucker.” The coach turned away again, his eye on the sandwich platter,
and Toby followed him.
“Mr. Lyle!” The coach stopped. “Mr. Lyle, will you please tell me what
you――what the――what I’m doing here?”
“Eh? What you’re doing here? Why, you’re supposed to get your luncheon,
Tucker. What do you mean?”
“But――but I’m not on the team, sir, and I don’t understand. Tarrant
said you wanted me over here and――――”
“Didn’t he tell you why? Didn’t Tubb tell you? Hasn’t _any one_ told
you?”
Toby shook his head mutely, almost apologetically.
“Well!” The coach took Toby’s arm and walked him over toward a window.
“I’m sorry. Tucker,” he said, “I thought of course you knew. Not that
I know much myself, though. All I do know is that Tubb came bounding
to me an hour or more ago and told me you were square at the Office
and wanted me to put you back. He said there had been a mistake and
that you hadn’t done what you were supposed to have done. I told him
I didn’t think you’d be an awful lot of use, after being out for more
than a week, but that I was quite willing to have you back on the
squad anyway. So I called up the Office and found it was all right
and sent Tarrant to look for you. That’s all I know, Tucker. If I can
work you in for a minute I’ll do it, but I make no promises. It’s sort
of hard lines on you, though, and I’ll do my best. Have you forgotten
everything you knew?”
“No, sir!” gasped Toby. “Only――only I guess you’d better not try to use
me, Mr. Lyle, because I don’t know the signals very well.”
“Do you know them at all?”
“Yes, sir, a little. I room with Deering, and he’s coached me some so I
could sort of coach him.”
“Get Curran to go through them with you. I’ll speak to him. If you’ll
get them pat between now and the last half, Tucker, I’ll see that you
get your letter. Now get some food into you.”
Toby seized on as many sandwiches as one hand would hold and poured out
a glass of milk. Then he made his way around the table to Tubb. “What
happened?” he whispered.
Tubb grinned. “Thought you’d be over here to ask pretty soon! I’ll
tell you all about it, Tucker. Wait till I get another hunk of cake.
Cake’s pretty good stuff when you’ve been off it a month or so! Guess
this sort won’t hurt you if you eat a loaf of it! Now, then. Remember
telling me that Frick――――” Tubb lowered his voice and glanced about
him, edging further from the throng. “Remember telling me that Frick
had a row with some of the town boys one night a long while ago?”
Toby nodded. “Arnold told me about it,” he said.
“Well. Then do you remember telling me about a red-headed chap who
punched you in the face the day the Second played Greenburg?”
Toby began to see light. “You mean he was the one who――――”
“Sure! All I did was put two and two together. Then, last night, I
risked being caught out of bounds and hunted the guy up. It wasn’t
hard. The first loafer in Greenburg I asked recognized the description
and sent me to a pool parlor. He was there all right and I got him to
come outside and talk. He was willing to talk, too. Seems that he
and two or three others got into a scrap with about the same number
of our fellows one evening just across the bridge and he and Frick
sort of took to each other and were having a merry scrap until Frick
pulled something hard from a pocket and cut this chap’s scalp open.
Sheehan――that’s the guy’s name――says he thinks Frick used a bunch of
keys or something like that. He doesn’t think it was a knife, anyway.
Our fellows got away――or the others did, and that ended it. Sheehan
says it was a nice little scrap, only Frick shouldn’t have sprung the
‘rough stuff’! So he got sore and decided he’d lay for Frick and get
even. Says he tried three or four times, but each time he saw Frick
there were fellows with him. But the other night he found him and got
him!”
“He oughtn’t to have done it the way he did, though. I mean it was sort
of rotten to have some one else hold Frick while――――”
“Huh! That’s the joker, Tucker!”
“What do you mean?”
“There wasn’t any other fellow! Sheehan got as sore as a pup when I
said something about that. Says he was alone and that every time he
knocked Frick down he had to lift him up again! Says Frick was game,
all right, but had to beg off finally. Then Sheehan found his cap for
him and went with him almost to the top of the Prospect because he was
pretty wobbly on his pins.”
“What do you know!” exclaimed Toby. “But why――――”
“Because he didn’t want any one to know that he’d been licked in a fair
fight. And, another thing, Tucker: I asked Sheehan if Frick knew who he
was fighting with, and Sheehan said, sure he did, that he took pains to
tell him! So, you see, friend Frick lied all the way through. When he
got to thinking things out he saw that if he could put the blame on you
he’d get you off the team and probably get your place.”
“I guess so,” agreed Toby. “I’m most awfully much obliged to you, Tubb.
You’re a perfect brick to take so much trouble and――――”
“Ginger! I enjoyed it. I tried to find you this morning the first
chance I got, but you were off somewhere. So I went right over to the
Office and waited around and saw the Doctor and told him the whole
yarn. I offered to get Sheehan up here if the Doctor would agree not to
make trouble for him. Sheehan was sort of afraid he might be arrested
or something, I guess. But the Doctor said he’d take my word for it.
After that I looked for you again, but you had a class, I guess, and
then it was time to come over here. And that’s the whole business. How
do I stand as a Sherlock W. Holmes?”
“A1,” laughed Toby. “But, listen, what about Frick? What did the Doctor
say about him?” Toby looked around in search of that youth but couldn’t
see him.
“No use looking for him,” chuckled Tubb. “He went out five minutes
ago. Some one came to the door and called him. Don’t believe we’ll see
him again for awhile! He will be lucky if they let him stick around. I
wouldn’t be surprised if he got fired, though. It might be just as well
for him if he did,” Tubb added grimly, “because if he’s around here
the day after to-morrow he’s going to be awfully sorry for some of the
things he’s done!”
“All over to the gym!” called Andy Ryan.