TIM EXULTS AND EXPLAINS
WHEN Don told Tim the latter insisted on performing a triumphal dance
about the room to the tune of "Boola." When Don squirmed himself loose
Tim continued alone until the droplight was knocked to the floor at the
cost of one green shade. Then he threw himself, panting but jubilant, on
his bed and hilariously kicked his feet in air. Don observed him with a
faint smile.
"You wooden Indian, you!" exclaimed Tim, sitting up and dropping his
feet to the floor with a crash. "There you stand like a--a graven image,
looking as though you'd just received an invitation to a funeral! Cheer,
you idiot! Make a noise! Aren't you tickled to death?"
"You bet I am!" replied Don.
"Well, do something, then! You ought to have a little of my Latin
temperament, Don. You'd be a heap easier to live with. If it was I who
had just been waited on humbly by the first team captain and invited to
join the eleven I'd--I'd make a--a noise!"
"What do you think you've been doing?" laughed Don. "You'll have Horace
in here in a minute. Steve says you're to coach me on the signals."
"Tomorrow!" Tim waved his hand. "Time enough for that, Don. Just now it
behooves us to celebrate."
"How?" asked Don.
Tim thought long and earnestly. Finally, "Let's borrow Larry Jones's
accordion and serenade Josh!" he said.
"Let's not. And let's not go to a fire, either! Think of something
better, Timmy."
"Then we'll go out and bay at the moon. I've got to do something! By the
time Joe's got his busted rib mended you'll have that left guard
position nailed to the planks, Don."
"How about Walton?" asked Don dubiously.
"A fig for Walton! Two figs for him! A whole box of figs! All you've got
to do is speed up a bit and----"
"Suppose I can't?"
"Suppose nothing! You've _got_ to! If you don't you'll have me to fight,
Donald. If you don't cinch that position in just one week I--I'll take
you over my knee and spank you with a belt! Come on over to Clint's
room. Let us disseminate the glorious tidings. Let us----"
"I'd rather learn the signals," said Don. "There's only tonight and
tomorrow, you know."
Tim appealed despairingly to the ceiling with wide-spread hands.
"There's no poetry in his soul," he mourned, "no blood in his veins!" He
faced Don scornfully. "Donald P. Gilbert is your name, my son, and the P
stands for Practical. All right, then, draw up a chair and let's have it
over. To think, though, that I should have to sit indoors a night like
this and teach signals to a wooden-head! I wooden do it for anyone else.
Ha! How's that! Get a pad and a pencil and try to look intelligent."
"All right? Mark 'em down, then. Starting at the left, number your holes
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 6, 4, 2. Got that? Number your left end 1, the next man
3, the next 5. Omit centre. Right guard 6, right tackle 4, right end 2.
Now, your backfield. Quarter 0, left half 7, right half 8, full-back 9."
"Gee, that's hard to remember," murmured Don.
"And hard to guess," answered Tim. "Now, your first number, unless it's
under thirty, is a fake. If it's under thirty it means that the next
number is the number of a play. Over thirty, it means nothing. Your
second digit of your second number is your runner. The second digit of
the third number is the hole. The fourth number, as you doubtless
surmise, is also a fake. Now, then, sir! 65--47--23--98! What is it?"
"Left half between end and tackle."
"On the left. Correct. 19--87--77--29?"
"I don't know. Nineteen calls for a numbered play."
"Right again, Mr. Gilbert, your performance is startling! The pity of it
is, though, that about the time you get these signals pat Robey'll
change them for the Claflin game. So far we've only got eight numbered
plays, and they aren't complicated. Want to go into them tonight?"
"No, I guess not. I'd rather get these holes and players sort of fixed
in my mind first. We'll go over the plays tomorrow, if you don't mind."
"It will break my heart, but I'll do it for you. Now will you come over
to Clint's?"
"I'd rather not, Tim. You go. I want to mull over these signals."
Presently, having exhausted his vocabulary on his room-mate, Tim went.
Don settled his head in his hands and studied the numbered diagram for
the better part of an hour. Don was slow at memorising, but what was
once forced into his mind stayed there. A little before ten o'clock he
slipped the diagram under a box in a bureau drawer and went to bed with
a calm mind, and when Tim returned riotously a few minutes later Don was
sleeping peacefully.
On Monday, in chapel, Don and the "heroes" of Farmer Corrigan's
conflagration had another shock, and Don, for one, wondered when he was
to hear the last of that affair. "Since last week," said Mr. Fernald
drily, "when I requested the four boys who helped to put out a fire at
the Corrigan farm to make themselves known to an admiring public, I have
gained an understanding of their evident desire to conceal their
identities. I am forced to the conclusion that it was not altogether
modesty that kept them silent. The fire, it appears, did not break out
until nearly half-past nine. Consequently the young gentlemen were
engaged in their heroic endeavours at a time when they should have been
in their dormitories. I have not yet found out who they were, but I am
making earnest efforts to do so. Meanwhile, if they wish to lighten the
consequences of their breach of school regulations, I'd earnestly advise
them to call and see me. I may add that, in view of the unusual
circumstances, had they made a clean breast of the affair I should have
dealt very leniently with them. That is all, I think. Dismissed."
None of the culprits dared to so much as glance at the others on the way
out of the hall, but afterward, when breakfast was over, they gathered
anxiously together in Number 6 Billings and discussed the latest
development with lowered voices, like a quartette of anarchists
arranging a bomb party.
"He's right up on his ear," said Clint gloomily. "If he gets us now he
will send us all packing, and don't you doubt it!"
"Piffle!" This from Tim, the least impressed of the four. "Probation is
all we'd get. Didn't the paper say we were heroes?"
"No, it didn't," answered Tom shortly. "And I wish that paper was in
Halifax!"
"Might as well be fired as put on pro," said Clint. "It would mean no
more football this year for any of us. My word, wouldn't Robey be mad!"
"Wouldn't I be!" growled Tom. "Look here, do you really suppose he's
trying to find out who we were, or was that just a bluff to scare us
into 'fessing up!"
"Josh isn't much of a bluffer," observed Don judiciously. "What he says
he means. What I don't savvy is why he hasn't found out already. Every
hall master has a record of leaves."
"Yes, but it was Saturday night and I'll bet half the school had leave,"
said Tim. "I dare say, though, that if any fellows are suspected we're
amongst 'em, Don. Being on the first floor, Josh knows we could sneak in
easily. Still, he can't prove it on us."
"I'm not so sure," replied Don thoughtfully. "Suppose he asked Mr.
Brady?"
A dismayed silence ensued until Tom laughed mirthlessly.
"That's one on us," he said. "We never thought of that. Maybe he has
asked Brady already."
"Brady doesn't know our names," said Tim. "You didn't tell him, did you,
Don?"
"No, he didn't ask. But he could easily describe us so that Josh would
recognise us, I guess."
"That's the trouble with being so plaguy distinguished looking," mourned
Tim. "Seems to me, fellows, that there's just one thing to be did, and
did sudden."
"You mean warn Mr. Brady?" asked Clint.
"Exactly, my discerning young friend. Maybe the horse is stolen----"
"What horse?" asked Tom perplexedly.
"Merely a figure of speech, Tom. I was about to observe when so rudely
interrupted----"
"Oh, cut out the verbiage," growled Tom.
"That possibly it was too late to lock the stable door," continued Tim,
"but we'd better do it, just the same. Let's see if he has a telephone."
"Of course he has," said Clint, "but I don't think it would be safe to
call him up. We'd better see him. Or write him a letter."
"He wouldn't get a letter until tomorrow, maybe," objected Don. "One of
us had better beat it over to his place as soon as possible and ask him
to keep mum."
"I can't go," said Tom. "I've got four recits this morning and Robey
would never let me off practice."
"I don't believe any of us will do much work this afternoon," said Tim.
"I'll go if Robey'll let me cut. I wish someone would come along,
though. It's a dickens of a trip to make alone. You come, Clint."
"I will if I can. We'll ask Robey at dinner. What shall we say to this
Brady man?"
"Just tell him what's doing and ask him to forget what we looked like if
Josh writes to him or calls him up or anything. Brady's a good old
scout, I'll bet," added Tim with conviction. "Maybe we'd better buy a
setting of eggs to get on the good side of him."
"Don't be a chump," begged Tim. "I don't call this a comedy situation,
if you do, Tim. I'd certainly hate to get on pro and have to drop
football!"
"Don't be a chump," begged Tom. "I don't say it's a comedy, but there's
no use weeping, is there? What's done is done, and we've got to make the
best of it, and a laugh never hurt anyone yet."
"Well, then, let's make the best of it," answered Tom peevishly.
"Talking doesn't do any good."
"Neither does grouching," said Tim sweetly. "You leave it all to Clint
and me, Tom. We're a swell pair of fixers. If we can get to Brady before
Josh does we're all right. And it's a safe wager Josh hasn't asked Brady
yet, for if he had he'd be on to us. There's the nine o'clock bell,
fellows, and I've got a recit. See you later. Hope for the best, Tom,
and fear the worst!"
Tim seized his books and dashed out, followed more leisurely by Clint.
Tom remained a few minutes longer and then he, too, took his departure,
still filled with forebodings. Don, left to himself, drew a chair to
the table and began to study. Truth, however, compels me to state that
what he studied was not his German, although he had a recitation coming
in forty minutes, but two sheets of buff paper torn from a scratch-pad
and filled with writing interspersed with numerals and adorned with
strange diagrams, in short, Tim's elucidation of the eight numbered
plays which up to the present comprised Brimfield's budget of tricks. It
can't be said that Don covered himself with glory in Mr. Daley's German
class that morning or that the instructor was at all satisfied, but Don
had the secret satisfaction of knowing that stored away in the back of
his brain was a very thorough knowledge of the Brimfield football signal
code and of Mr. Robey's special plays.