AN EVENING CALL
That evening Slim, with his hand prettily painted with iodine, had an
engagement that excluded Leonard, and the latter, having no liking for
a Saturday evening alone, called up Johnny McGrath on the telephone,
found that that youth was to be at home and then walked over to 102
Melrose avenue.
Not only Johnny, but most of Johnny’s family was at home, and Leonard
was introduced to Mrs. McGrath and Mr. McGrath and young Cullen;
Johnny’s elder brother was married and lived elsewhere. Leonard liked
Mr. and Mrs. McGrath instantly. They were just what they seemed--and
vice versa--a thoroughly nice, warm-hearted couple, uncultured but wise
and shrewd and well-mannered. Perhaps Leonard took to them the more
readily because they made him see at once that they were ready and even
anxious to like him. Although Leonard couldn’t know it, Johnny had
spoken frequently of him, and any one approved of by Johnny was bound
to be welcomed by Johnny’s parents. And, another thing that Leonard
didn’t know, even if he suspected it later, very few of Johnny’s
school acquaintances ever came to his home.
Leonard wasn’t filled with instant liking for Cullen, for the younger
brother was at the difficult age of thirteen and was long of leg and
awkward of speech and movement, a freckle-faced youngster who, knowing
of the visitor’s connection with the Alton football team, viewed him
with piercing intentness and at intervals broke into the general
conversation with startlingly inopportune questions. Leonard wasn’t
quite at his ease until, after a half-hour downstairs, Johnny conveyed
him up to his room on the third floor, sternly forbidding the ready
Cullen to follow.
That room was quite wonderful, Leonard thought, comparing it to his
own small room at home. It was very large, fully twenty feet square,
with four big windows framed in gay cretonne and white muslin, two huge
closets and book-shelves that went all across one wall. Those shelves
made a great hit with the visitor. They were just elbow-high and they
had no pesky glass doors in front of them. You could take a book out
without the least effort, and you could lay it on top of the shelves
and look at it if you didn’t want to carry it to a chair. And that was
just what Leonard was doing presently. Johnny had more books than the
caller had ever seen outside a public library! And such books, too!
A full set of the best encyclopedia, all sorts of dictionaries--not
only of words, but of places and dates and phrases--and all of
Stevenson and Dickens, and Green’s and Prescott’s histories, and the
Badminton Library and lots and lots of other books in sets or single
volumes. Leonard thought of his own scanty collection of some two-score
tomes--many of them reminders of nursery days--and for a moment was
very envious. Then envy passed, and he silently determined to some day
have a library as big and complete as Johnny’s.
The room was plainly furnished, but everything in it was designed for
both comfort and use, a fact that Leonard recognized and that caused
him to realize for perhaps the first time that with furniture as with
everything else real beauty was founded on usefulness, was intrinsic
and not external. Everything in this room was just what it appeared to
be. Not a single object masqueraded as something else. Leonard liked it
all enormously and said so emphatically, and Johnny was pleased. You
could see that.
“I’m glad you like it,” he answered almost gratefully. “Dad let me buy
everything myself. I could have got stuff that looked a lot--well, a
lot grander, do you mind; things with carved legs and all that sort of
flummery; but I sort of like plainer things better.”
Leonard nodded, looking about the big, pleasantly lighted apartment.
“So do I,” he agreed, although five minutes ago, had you asked him, he
wouldn’t have known! “Some room, McGrath,” he went on approvingly. “And
there’s a light just about everywhere, isn’t there?”
It did seem so. There was a plain brass standard by the wicker couch,
two smaller hood-shaded lights atop the book-shelves, a hanging bulb
over the broad chiffonier, a squat lamp on the big, round table and
a funny little blue enameled affair on the stand by the head of the
bed. Only the table lamp was lighted, but the soft glow radiated to
every corner of the room. Leonard’s gaze went back to the many shelves
opposite.
“Did you buy all those books yourself?” he asked.
“Oh, no, only maybe a third of them. The folks gave me the others. They
know I’m fond of them. Joe always gives me books at Christmas and my
birthday.” He saw the unuttered question in Leonard’s face and smiled
as he added: “They always ask me what I want, though, first.”
Leonard got up then and prowled. He looked at the four pictures in
plain dark-oak frames: “The Retreat from Moscow”; a quaint print of an
elderly man standing before a second-hand bookstall on a Paris quay
holding a huge umbrella overhead while, with one volume tucked under an
arm, he peered near-sightedly into a second; a photograph of Hadrian’s
Tomb and a Dutch etching of a whirling windmill, with bent sedges about
a little pool and an old woman bending against the wind.
“I like that one a lot,” explained Johnny. “Can’t you just see--no,
I mean feel the wind? I’d like to go to Holland some day. It must be
fine, I’m thinking.”
Leonard had a go at the books next, Johnny pulling forth his special
treasures for him. After awhile they sat down again and talked, and
when, as was to be expected, football came up for discussion, the
discussion became animated. Although Johnny didn’t play, he was a keen
critic--and a fearless one. “There’s two or three fellows on the team,”
he declared after the day’s contest had been gone over, “that would be
better for a vacation, to my mind. Put them on the bench for a week,
maybe, and they’d come back and earn their keep.”
Leonard wanted to know the names of the gentlemen, but wasn’t sure
he ought to ask. Johnny supplied them, however, without urging.
“It’s Smedley and Garrick and that big Renneker I’m thinking of,” he
explained. “Take Smedley, now, sure he’s a good man, but he don’t ever
spit on his hands and get to work, Grant. It’s the same way with the
other two, especially Renneker. He’s asleep at the switch half the
time.”
“But I thought he played a pretty good game to-day,” objected Leonard.
“He did, but what’s a ‘pretty good game’ for a fellow who’s made the
All-Scholastic?” asked Johnny witheringly. “Sure, ’tis no game at all.
He has the height of a camel and the weight of a whale, and does he use
either intelligently? He does not! I’m no football player, Grant--or
should I be calling you General?--but I can see with half an eye, and
that one shut, that the lad isn’t earning his salary.”
“He doesn’t get any,” laughed Leonard.
“I know, that was a figure of speech,” answered the other. “Though, by
the same token, I’ll bet he’d take the salary if it was offered.”
“You mean--” Leonard stopped. Then he added: “Slim thinks you maybe
made a mistake about Renneker that time.”
“I thought so myself,” responded Johnny. “But this afternoon I got
Jimsy Carnochan to go to the game with me. Mind you, I said no word to
him about Renneker or Ralston or any one else. I just wanted to see
would he notice anything. Well, in the third quarter, when the play was
close to where we were sitting, Jimsy said to me, ‘Who’s the big fellow
there playing right guard?’ ‘On which team?’ I asked him. ‘On Alton.’
‘His name’s Gordon Renneker.’ ‘Like fun,’ said Jimsy. ‘If it is my
name’s Napoleon Bonaparte! Don’t you mind the fellow that played first
base in New Haven last summer for the Maple Leaf team? I’ve forgotten
his name, but ’twill come to me.’ ‘Ralston, do you mean?’ I asked him.
‘Ralston! That’s the guy! What’s he calling himself out of his name
for now?’ ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘you’re mistaken. There’s a similarity, I’ll
acknowledge, but this fellow is Gordon Renneker, a fine lad that got
placed on the All-Scholastic Team last year.’ ‘Maybe he was placed
on it, whatever it is,’ said Jimsy, ‘and he’s likewise placed in my
memory, for the big piece of cheese caught me with my foot off the bag,
and I’m not forgetting any guy that does that!’ Well, I told him that
he couldn’t be certain, seeing that you’re always reading about people
that look so much alike their own mothers can’t tell them apart, maybe;
and I minded him of a moving picture play that was here no longer ago
than last August where one man takes another man’s place in Parliament
and no one knows any different. And finally I said to him: ‘Whatever
you may be thinking, Jimsy, keep it to yourself, for if it turned out
that you were mistaken you’d feel mighty small, what with getting an
innocent fellow into trouble.’ So there’s no fear of Jimsy talking,
General.”
Leonard looked perplexed. “It’s awfully funny,” he said finally.
“Renneker isn’t at all the sort of fellow you’d think to find playing
baseball for money. Look at the clothes he wears, and--and the
impression he gives you. Why, he must have plenty of money, McGrath.”
“You’d think so. Still, I mind the time when I had all the good clothes
I could get on my back and would have been glad of the chance of
picking up a bit of money. Although,” added Johnny, “I don’t think I’d
change my name to do it.”
“Well,” said Leonard, shaking his head in puzzlement, “I can’t get it.
What’s troubling me, though, is this. Knowing what we do--or suspecting
it, rather--ought we to tell some one? I mean Coach Cade or Rus Emerson
or faculty.”
“I’m wondering that myself,” said Johnny, frowning. “Maybe it’s no
business of mine, though, for I’m not connected with football--”
“What difference does that make?” Leonard demanded. “You’re an Alton
fellow, aren’t you? If what you suspect about Gordon Renneker is true
he ought not to be allowed to play for Alton, and as an Alton student--”
“Sure, that’s true enough,” agreed Johnny ruefully. “I was fearing
you’d say that. I’ve said it to myself already.” He grinned across
at his guest. After a moment he continued: “There’s this about it,
though, General. I’ve no proof, no real proof, I mean. Like I told
Jimsy Carnochan, it might be I was mislead by one of those strange
resemblances that you read of.”
“Yes,” answered Leonard without conviction. “You might be. I guess
you’ll just have to do as you think best.”
Johnny’s eyes twinkled. “Sure, and how about you?” he asked innocently.
“Me?”
“Yes, for I’ve told you all there is to be told. How about you speaking
of it to the coach or some one?”
“Gee, I couldn’t!” Leonard protested. “I’m playing on the team, or,
anyway, the squad, and it wouldn’t look very well for me to--to prefer
charges against another member, now would it?”
Johnny laughed merrily. “I can’t do it because I’m not on the team, and
you can’t do it because you are!” Then he sobered. “We’ll leave it as
it is,” he decided. “I want to do what’s right, but I don’t know that
it would be right to accuse Renneker of this with no real proof to
back up the charge with. Besides, if he plays no better game than he’s
been playing, ’twill work no injustice to the teams we meet, for, with
him out of it, the coach might put in a fellow that would be a sight
better.”
“Do you think I’d better say anything to Slim about what happened
to-day?” asked Leonard.
“I wouldn’t,” said Johnny dryly. “’Twould only worry him. Slim’s all
for sticking his head in the sand, like an ostrich, and there’s no call
to be twitching his tail-feathers!”
Leonard had to laugh at that, and no more was said on the subject
that evening. In fact, the evening was about gone. At the front door,
Johnny, bidding the caller “Good night,” added a bit wistfully: “’Twas
fine of you to come and see me, Grant, and I appreciate it. I’d be
liking it if you’d come again some time.”
“Why, I liked it myself,” laughed Leonard from the steps. “And I surely
will come again. And, say, why don’t you ever come and see Slim and me?”
“Well, I don’t know,” answered Johnny. “Maybe I might some time.”
“I wish you would,” Leonard assured him. “We’re almost always at home
evenings.”
Going on down the hill, Leonard reflected that the probable reason why
Johnny had never called at Number 12 Haylow was that he had never been
asked.
The doors were still open when Leonard reached Haylow, but ten o’clock
struck just as he was climbing the stairs. In Number 12 the light was
burning and in the bed at the left Slim was fast asleep, a magazine
spread open across his chest. Leonard set about preparing for slumber
with stealthy movements. Perhaps he need not have taken so much
trouble, though, for when he inadvertently knocked a French dictionary
from the corner of the table and it fell with a slam loud enough to
make him jump an inch off the floor Slim didn’t even stir. It was not
until Leonard was in his pajamas that his gaze happened on a half-sheet
of paper pinned squarely in the middle of his pillow. He held it to the
light and read:
“If I’m asleep when you return
Then wake me up, I pray,
For there is something that I yearn
2 you 2 night 2 say.”
Leonard smiled and turned doubtfully toward the sleeper. It seemed too
bad to awaken him. Whatever it was that he had to tell could doubtless
wait for morning. Still, Slim never had any trouble getting to sleep,
and so--
“Wake up, Slim!” Leonard shook him gently. Slim slumbered on. “_Slim!_
Here, snap out of it! _Hi, Slim!_” Slim muttered and strove to slip
away from the rough, disturbing grasp. “No, you don’t! You wanted to be
waked up, and I’m going”--shake--“to wake you up”--shake--“if it takes
all night!” Slim opened his eyes half an inch and observed Leonard with
mild interest. Then:
“That you, General?” he muttered.
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
“Hold on! What was it you wanted to say to me, you silly coot?”
“Huh?”
“Come awake a minute. You left a note on my pillow--something you
wanted to say to me--remember?”
“Yes,” answered Slim sleepily.
“Well, say it then!”
“I did. That was it.”
“What was it?”
“‘Good night.’”
Slim turned his back and pulled the clothes up over his ears.