A FRUITLESS INTERVIEW
WHEN the Westcott boys gathered Monday morning at the corner outside the
school building, every third comer bore a newspaper in his hand and hot
indignation in his heart. Only those who did not read the papers, and
had not learned the news which Mike and Dickie brought to the quarters,
wore the complacent smile which they had carried from the field on
Saturday.
President John’s friends, the reporters, had done their work thoroughly.
While most of the Sunday journals merely announced the result of the
game, or gave a few inches of space to a more or less inaccurate
description, the _Trumpeter_ and the _Mail_ each sacrificed to it the
best part of a column on the page devoted to sports, introduced by heavy
headlines such as: WESTCOTT’S KNEW THE SIGNALS. SENSATIONAL CHARGES
AGAINST BACK BAY BOYS. GAME PROTESTED. INTERVIEW WITH PRES. SMITH! From
the interview it appeared that President John saw the affair in a very
serious light; that the league stood for the highest ideals in sport,—a
familiar phrase in the mouth of its president,—and would certainly deal
sternly with dishonorable practices of any kind. A special meeting of
the managing committee of the league was to be called immediately to
consider the protest. If the charge should be sustained, clearly the
only fair course would be to declare the game forfeited to Newbury, the
score to stand on the record as one to nothing.
To say that the Westcott lads felt indignant at being thus advertised as
unscrupulous cheats when they knew themselves absolutely innocent, is
like describing a raving maniac as the victim of hallucination. They
boiled and bubbled with rage. If President John had shown himself at the
corner of Otway Street at that moment, they would have flown to mob him,
though every bell in the Westcott school were clanging in their ears.
But as the exalted official did not present himself to be mobbed, and
the school gong did ring, they filed obediently in, and taking their
seats, brooded in sullen bitterness on the outrage. A boy’s sense of
justice—or, as some one has better expressed it, sense of injustice—is
always morbidly keen. The boys at Westcott’s were used to a life in
which the good things flowed in on them naturally, with few questions as
to whether they were deserved or undeserved. Good behavior, fair work,
regard for their parents’ wishes, constituted the price they were
expected to pay; even on this discounts were sometimes allowed. Flat
over-riding of just rights had entered into their experience as little
as physical hardship. They reared against the blow like a young,
high-spirited horse which feels for the first time the sting of a cruel
whip.
After the morning Scripture reading, to which, it is to be feared, few
gave heed, Mr. Westcott called Harrison and Wilmot into his office,
where he kept them for a quarter of an hour. The other football men, if
they could have had their hearts’ desire, would have sat outside the
office, matching expletives, until their comrades should come forth and
give them the history of the interview. This being for obvious reasons
impossible, the excited lads kept their curiosity under control and went
about their morning tasks with what interest they could
muster,—wrestling, nauseated, with the dullness of Burke on
Conciliation, abusing good English by turning it into worse than peasant
German, and finding Cicero’s maledictions on Catiline but weak and
watery dilutions compared with the things they could say of President
John Smith. Dunn alone of those especially concerned studied that
morning with absolute diligence; he did this in self-defence, to keep
his thoughts from a subject—more disagreeable than lessons—to which
they would wander if his grip upon them slackened but a moment.
At the lunch hour the ban was raised. A crowd packed itself about
Harrison and Wilmot as soon as the two got within the lunch-room door,
demanding news, and news condensed. “What did he say? What are you going
to do?” was the burden of the questions, but they fell like a hailstorm
in various forms and at various angles, from scores of lips at once.
Harrison was staggered, but not Wilmot, whose nimble wit served an ever
nimble tongue.
“He says we’ve disgraced the school,” said Wilmot, with a tragic
gesture. “We’ve got to go to Mr. Smith and apologize and—”
He stopped, not because he had run out of ideas, or was put to shame by
the serious faces about him, but of simple necessity. A hand was pressed
upon his lips and a strong arm embraced him from behind.
“Shut up, or I’ll break your ribs,” said Talbot, quietly. “We don’t want
to hear from you at all. Harry’s the man. Go ahead, Harry. I’ll keep
this fellow quiet.”
Harrison, thus encouraged, started on his report. “He wanted to know all
about it, and we told him. He said it was an insult to the school which
we must treat with dignified contempt. We’ve got to keep cool about it
and not get crazy and shoot off a lot of wild talk. That would hurt us
more than anything those fellows can say. He’s going to have Yards write
to the two papers, and he’ll write to the head-master at Trowbridge.”
“They’ve called a meeting for Wednesday,” said Pete.
“Do you think Trowbridge will side with ’em?” asked Hardie.
“I hope not,” answered the captain, doubtfully.
“If they think they can beat us,” offered Cable, “Trowbridge will side
with us, because if we beat Newbury and Trowbridge beat us, the worst
that could come for Trowbridge would be a tie, even if they got beaten
by Newbury.”
“How’s that?” demanded Reeves.
“It’s right. Think it out for yourself, and you’ll see,” said Talbot,
impatiently.
“And if we get one vote from Trowbridge, and one goes against us,”
continued Cable, encouraged by the attention given to his remarks,
“we’re sure to lose our case. There would be two votes of Newbury and
one of Trowbridge against us, and two of Westcott’s and one of
Trowbridge for us. Then the president would vote against us.”
“That’s right, too,” said Pete, ruefully.
“And if Trowbridge doesn’t vote at all or doesn’t come to the meeting,
the result will be the same.”
“I don’t believe Trowbridge would play us that kind of a trick,”
remarked Sumner; “it’s too mean a thing to do.”
At this point the suppressed Wilmot began to wave his hands about in
gestures which indicated that he wished permission to speak.
“Let go of him, Pete; he wants to say something!” commanded the captain.
Wilmot, obtaining release by this pantomime, escaped to a safer
position. “You haven’t said anything about going to see Callahan.”
“I forgot that. He thought Jason and some one else had better hunt up
Callahan and get his evidence.”
At this proposal, Dunn, who stood on the outskirts of the crowd, was
edging away, but Eaton dragged him back. “I won’t!” said the
unfortunate, sullenly. “I don’t want anything more to do with it.”
“You’ve got to,” Eaton retorted. “You’ve got us into this scrape; now
you must get us out.”
“You’ll have to go, too, Harry,” said Talbot, calmly treating Dunn’s
refusal as if it had not been made.
“I must be at the practice. Steve can go. He’s no use for anything
else.”
“I can’t go, either,” began Wilmot. “I’ve got to look after the balls
and take care of the sweaters and—”
“Shut up!” interrupted Talbot. “Mike will attend to all that, won’t you,
Mike?”
“Sure!”
“I’m not the man for it; I couldn’t get anything out of him,” insisted
Wilmot. “A simple, inoffensive fellow like me could never make any one
do anything he doesn’t want to. Pete ought to go. He’s got an awful
crust.”
“You’re going,” answered Talbot; “it’s the manager’s job. If Callahan
can stand your talk for ten minutes without giving you anything you ask
to get rid of you, he’ll be the first man who’s ever done it. You
remember the address, Jason?”
Dunn thought he did. “Then it’s settled,” said Talbot. “Let’s get
something to eat.”
That afternoon Wilmot and Dunn journeyed to East Boston together in
search of Callahan. They had little to say to each other on the way.
Wilmot disliked Dunn, and Dunn was afraid of Wilmot; neither relished
the expedition on which they were engaged. After much questioning and
unnecessary wandering they arrived at No. 73 Doble Street and asked if
Mr. Callahan lived there.
Yes, Mr. Callahan lived there, but was not at home; he would be in about
five. The boys drifted forth to kill time as best they could, hung round
the steamship docks, where a big Cunarder was being loaded, until
darkness fell, and then strolled slowly back to the abode of the
ex-coach.
Callahan had returned. They waited in the dimly lighted entry while
their message was carried aloft, depressed by the strange surroundings
and a sense of inadequacy to the task which they had undertaken.
Presently a heavy step was heard descending the bare treads of the
second flight above, and soon Callahan’s forbidding face came into the
half-light. He stopped on the third stair and peered suspiciously down
upon his visitors.
It had been arranged that Dunn should begin the interview, but at the
crisis Jason was dumb.
“What is it?” demanded Callahan. “What do you want?”
“We come from Westcott’s School,” said Wilmot, perceiving that it was
useless to wait for Dunn. “You’ve probably seen in the papers the
trouble we’re in about the Newbury game.”
“Yes, I have,” snarled Callahan, with an oath; “and a nice mess you’ve
got me into with your talk!”
“We haven’t been talking,” Wilmot answered; “it’s Newbury that’s doing
the talking. We thought you’d be willing to help us out by saying that
we didn’t get any signals from you, and—”
“Of course you didn’t get any signals from me—for the very good reason
that I wouldn’t have given ’em to you.”
“But you offered them to us,” said Dunn, his tongue loosened by this
strange statement. “You told me that day at Adams’s—”
Callahan turned fiercely upon him. “It’s a lie! I never offered you any
signals. I said I was through with Newbury and could coach you if you
wanted me.”
Dunn, amazed, opened his mouth to reply, but Wilmot was too quick for
him. “Will you write us a statement that you didn’t give us any signals?
Of course we know you didn’t, but the statement might help us.”
“Write nothing!” said the coach, shortly. “It’s none of my business.
There’s nothing in it for me.”
“We’ll pay you for it,” began Dunn, with eagerness; but Wilmot, who
perceived instantly that an evil interpretation might be given to this
transaction, checked his colleague.
“No, we couldn’t do that, of course. It wouldn’t look right. But if
you’d give us a statement denying that we got the Newbury signals from
you, we should be very thankful for it.”
“I’m not giving statements. Anybody who knows Jake Callahan knows he
wouldn’t sell signals. Anybody who says he did, lies!”
While speaking these words, Callahan had finished his descent of the
stairs and opened the outer door. Wilmot said good night and went forth,
dragging after him Dunn, who seemed on the point of raising again the
question of the conversation which he had held with Callahan at the
field.
“But he did offer the signals just the same!” Dunn broke out, after they
had walked in silence a hundred yards down the street.
“What difference does it make?” answered Wilmot, wearily. “He’s no good
to us, anyway.”
Yards was no more successful with his communication to the newspapers.
The _Mail_ hid it away in the bottom corner of the market page, where
Yards himself had difficulty in discovering it. The _Trumpeter_
sandwiched it in between a letter on Esperanto and another from an
opponent of the battle-ship programme. As few who read the sports pages
know of the existence of the correspondence column, and no one who reads
the letters cares anything about sports, Yards’s chance of undoing the
impression made by President John’s friends was about one in a thousand.
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