THE CODFISH CREATES NEWS.
Golden October, slipping rapidly by, found our boys settled
comfortably in their college life. The first week was a hard one
for them all, but as time went on they adjusted themselves to their
surroundings, began to make acquaintances and easily dropped into the
daily routine of work and play. Frank and Jimmy had gone out for the
Freshman football team, and the latter was now a recognized member of
the squad with great hopes for the future.
Frank had been unfortunate. On the third day of practice he twisted
an ankle and had been obliged to sit on the side-lines watching his
fellows boom along under instruction of the coach while he saw his
chances gradually growing slimmer. To-day he had gone out again and
after half an hour again wrenched the bad ankle. It would be another
week at least before he could think of playing.
"You are the best representation of Gloom I ever saw pulled off,"
said the Codfish that night as Frank hobbled into the room after
dinner at Commons, and threw himself into a chair.
"My jinx seem to be working overtime," returned Frank, "and my
guardian angel is out visiting somewhere. Did you ever see such
luck?" and he deposited the injured leg on the chair in front of him.
"Bad judgment, my boy, bad judgment. You should have gone in for the
less strenuous sport of rowing as I have," admonished the Codfish.
"A lazy, sit-down job and one for which you are peculiarly fitted,"
broke in Jimmy Turner.
"Ah, but my boy, if you can win your Y sitting down, isn't it better
than to be mauled by bear-cats every day? I belong to the antisweat
brigade."
"The only Y you will ever get is the one you find in your soup,"
Jimmy flung at him.
"Stranger things than that have happened, Mr. Turner."
"Yes, blue moons, for instance."
Codfish, fired by the general fever for something to do outside of
the classroom, had indeed enlisted himself as a candidate for the
coxswain of the crew, because, as he said, "You only had to sit
still, pull ropes now and then and talk." He had been out as one of
the coxswains and had shown some aptitude in spite of the fact that
he knew nothing whatever about rowing.
"I'm paralyzed with amazement," said Frank, looking the Codfish over
quizzically, "that you ever got ginger enough into your system to
even do sit-down work."
"Well, you see it was this way," returned the crew squad-man,
crossing one thin leg over the other. "I went down there to the boat
house one day, merely to look on, to see----"
"To see how the young idea was shooting, eh?" grunted Jimmy.
"Precisely. And when the coaches saw me they were struck with my
peculiar--ahem----!"
"Unfitness!"
"Wrong again, the phrase I was going to use was, 'peculiar fitness,'
fitness, do you get it? for the job, and begged me to help them out."
"And you helped?"
"What could I do? Other things are claiming my attention but I could
not see rowing go to the bad down there, so I accepted as gracefully
as I could."
"And now things are in a rotten state?"
"For the second time, wrong and always wrong. They are improving
daily. Of course, I'm not in the first boat yet, it would have
created too much jealousy, but I have assurance from headquarters
that I will be moved into the coveted position of cox of the Freshman
crew as soon as it has been picked."
"Heaven help the first Freshman crew then," groaned Jimmy.
"Little do they realize the honor that is shortly to descend upon
them," returned the Codfish, complacently. "I have some original
ideas about steering a shell which will practically assure them of
the race next June."
"And they are?"
"Why cast pearls before swine? The scheme will be revealed to you in
due season," and the Codfish pulled a pad of paper toward him and
began to scribble on it industriously.
"You didn't know, perhaps, that I've decided to go out for the
_News_, did you?" said the Codfish, scratching away with his head
tilted on one side.
"Aren't you a little late in the undertaking?" inquired Frank. "That
is something of a job for even an intelligent man."
"For an ordinary intellect, yes, but for me a mere bagatelle, or
bag-of-shells, as the ancients have it."
"Heeling the _News_ means hours and hours of shacking," said Frank.
"Have you seen those pale ghosts of heelers flitting around by day
and by night on bicycles?"
"O, yes, that's the ordinary way, I know. I shall deal only in
scoops, which, if you follow me, means a 'beat' on all the other
fellows."
"It's a difficult business, sonny."
"On the contrary, a cinch. Watch your Uncle Dudley. Simply mind over
matter. You boneheads wouldn't understand my reasoning processes if I
explained, so why explain? But I say, when is David Powers expected
in this burg?"
"Arrives on the morning train from New York," said Frank. "Got in on
the _Olympic_ last night from the other side. Began to think he was
lost."
"Good old Davey. And he's going to be in Pierson?"
"Yes, right across the hall from us."
"Good, I can use him in my _News_ ambitions. Now I guess I'll run
across to the _News_ office and tell the editors I'm ready to start
work."
"I hope they kill you," Jimmy shot after him as the door banged.
Half an hour later the Codfish was back in the room.
"Well, what happened?" both boys demanded.
"What do you suppose?"
"They fired you out after one good look at you."
"On the contrary, they welcomed me with open arms. Assignment Editor
is a peach. He recognized my ability at once."
"How?"
"O, kind of naturally doped it out for himself. General bearing I
have, I s'pose. Poor Freshman bunch heeling the _News_ now, he told
me, and that makes my chances better."
"O, you egotist, you blithering egotist," laughed Jimmy.
"No, no, not egotism, just merely confidence. Now if I were on the
Freshman football squad, I'd just simply know I was going to make the
team, and that's all there'd be to it. I'd make it. Mind over matter,
my boy, mind over matter, as I was telling you."
"And when do you begin?" inquired Frank.
"O, I'll knock off a little something in the morning. I've an hour
after ten-thirty recitation. I asked the Assignment Editor to save me
a column on the front page, in view of a scoop I contemplate. Hand me
that paper, Turner," indicating the evening paper which lay on the
floor at Jimmy's feet.
Turner tossed it over to him, and Codfish at once buried himself in
its columns. After ten minutes' reading, the Codfish slapped his knee
with a resounding slap and gave evidence of excitement.
"What's up, old top?" inquired Frank, looking up from his book.
"Basis for a scoop first lick out of the box," was the answer.
"And what?"
"O, read it in the _News_ day after to-morrow," and the Codfish
settled himself to lay out his plans. He had come across an item
which suggested something in the way of a story which would attract
the attention of the whole college.
Nothing was seen of the Codfish the next day. He explained to his
roommates that he had taken two cuts and had gone into the suburbs on
an exploring expedition. He had hardly time to welcome David Powers
who arrived in due season, and was properly installed among his
belongings in the room across the hallway. But the following morning
as with Frank and Jimmy he strolled across the Campus to Osborn Hall
for the first recitation after Chapel, he proudly exhibited a copy of
the _News_. On the first page in black type was emblazoned the head:
EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY.
BONES OF PREHISTORIC ANIMAL UNEARTHED
BY WORKMEN PRESENTED
TO YALE
MUSEUM.
SAID TO BE MOST IMPORTANT FIND
IN RECENT YEARS.
Then followed a description of the bones which were represented to
be those of a prehistoric horse of a species not before known to the
paleontologists. The article ended with the information that the
bones had been carefully preserved, and had been presented, or would
shortly be presented, to the Yale Museum by the _News_ representative
who had had a prominent part in their recovery.
The Codfish puffed out his chest as Frank and Jimmy scanned the
article. "What do you think of your humble roommate now, eh, what?
Didn't I tell you to read it in the _News_?"
"So that's what bit you the other night?"
"Sure. The ordinary eye would have passed that item over without a
thought, but I saw possibilities in it. You never saw so many bones,"
he added. "Fine bones, perfectly fine bones, just as good as any over
in the Museum, and a lot whiter than most of them."
"Yes, but who told you they belonged to the prehistoric horse?"
"O, the foreman of the gang. He was a keen guy, I tell you, knew all
about the game and got me so enthusiastic that I bought the whole
bunch for ten dollars. They'll have a chance to mull over them up at
the Museum in a day or two."
"More likely they are the remains of some poor bossy," said Jimmy,
"who laid down and died yesteryear."
"You are the most disgusting pessimist I know," said the Codfish in
high dudgeon. "Haven't they as good a chance to be old-fashioned
bones as anything? Anyway I got the story in and a credit of five
thousand words at least on the scoop. The fact that I bought them and
presented them to the Museum should be worth another bunch of credit
to me, but I'll work that up into a new story that will knock their
eye out."
"But Lord help you if you've put the _News_ in wrong," said Frank.
"Tush, tush," was all that Codfish would say, "don't discourage the
efforts of a budding genius."
Several days later three expressmen might have been seen carrying
most carefully a gigantic packing box labeled:
RELICS--WITH CARE.
and addressed to the Peabody Museum. Behind it marched the Codfish.
"Round the back way," he commanded. "You can't get in the front
way. Easy there. You're carrying the most important thing you ever
handled."
"It's darn'd heavy," grunted one of the men.
"That's because it's so valuable," admonished the guardian of the
box. "Don't drop it, on your life; it's a prehistoric horse."
"Well, if it is, give me a historic one. He must be solid stone."
"No, only solid bone, like your head. Easy there!"
Stumbling and grunting the men carried the box as gingerly as they
could around to the back of the Museum.
The Codfish left his precious possession, and hunted around in the
gloomy depths of the basement of the Museum among the giant bones of
long extinct mammals which lined the corridors.
"They must all be ossified here," he muttered to himself, but as
he was about to give up the search for something living in that
forbidding cavern, he came upon an apron-clad man who looked him over
curiously.
"Well," said he of the apron.
"I'm looking for the bone man," said the Codfish somewhat abashed.
"You're in the wrong museum, you want the dime kind."
"No, I don't. I want the bone professor."
"O, the bone professor, eh? Well, I'm the man," he said, while the
suspicion of a smile crossed the pale features. "What's wanted?"
"Got a bunch of bones out here for you, great stuff, too."
"Whose bones?"
"O, it's something that will interest you. I've presented them to the
Museum."
"You have, eh? That's kind of you. Didn't you think we had enough?"
glancing around at the tiers of cases and the tons of uncased bones
lying on the floor.
"O, but you've got nothing like these. These are the whitest bones
you ever saw, belonged to a prehistoric horse or something of that
kind. Don't you read the _News_? Take a look at them. Where do you
want them put?"
The "bone professor" called a workman who, with a hatchet, soon had
the cover of the packing case ripped off, exposing the great find of
the Codfish.
"This is a poor joke," said the professor, the danger light beginning
to flash in his eye. "Take them out of this."
"Why, aren't they good bones? Didn't they belong to a prehistoric
horse?"
"A prehistoric jackass, and you are a direct descendant," shouted
the professor. "I won't have you or your bones around here. You've
dug up a domestic animal cemetery somewhere. Off with them," and he
turned on his heel and plunged into the basement without so much as
another look at the discoverer of the prehistoric horse.
"And to think that I paid ten dollars to get them here," reflected
the Codfish. "Science can go hang in the future. Here," to the driver
of the wagon, "take this blooming box of bones away somewhere and
lose it forever."
"It'll take five dollars to lose it right," said the driver, who
with his two assistants, had hung around, grinning broadly at the
discomfiture of the friend of science.
"It's worth five to have it lost," said the Codfish as he went into
his pocket for the necessary bill, "and if I ever see it or you
again, beware of your life."
"We'll take it to the soap factory, eh?"
"No chance," said the Codfish gloomily. "The bones are not old enough
for the Museum and too old for the factory. Eat them if you want to,
only get rid of them somehow. I'm off," and he strode out to High
street in a rage. But the Codfish had the newspaper man's sense, and
that night wrote an article for his paper which explained that the
find was only "semiprehistoric, and as such did not have the value
that it was first supposed to have in spite of the authority of the
first testimony."
The Codfish did not know till later that his prehistoric stories
netted him less than nothing, for he was docked ten thousand words by
the _News_ board for handing in an article which contained so much
misinformation.
In such ways do the Fates trip up even unselfish friends of science.