A SHOCK FOR THE COACH.
Dick Merriwell had no connection with the faculty of Yale, in an
official sense. But his relations with the dean and with most of the
professors were cordial in the extreme. They were men who understood
fully that the work of teaching was supplemented by the athletics that
had grown to be so great a part of Yale life. Men studied and learned
the things the faculty had to teach; and, if they did that well, the
faculty had no further direct interest. But the professors who really
amounted to anything knew perfectly well that the men who went out of
Yale really well equipped for their careers, were the ones who, like
Dick Merriwell, had taken part in athletics and other activities of
college, and had so fitted themselves for their life work.
So it was that Dick really had a good deal to do with the members of the
faculty. Many students who shone in athletics were likely, at certain
times, to neglect their work. The rules at Yale on this point are very
strict. Unless a man keeps up in his college work, he is not allowed to
play on the teams. So, when a team man showed signs of falling back in
his work, the dean would usually drop a little note to Dick Merriwell,
and the universal coach, skillfully and tactfully, would make the lazy
one understand that he must keep up in his work or forego the pleasures
of athletics.
Dick was especially interested at this time in the seniors, so soon to
leave Yale and go out into the world for themselves. He wanted all of
them to graduate with credit—Sherman, Taylor, Gray, and the others who
had done so much to make the season a great one for Yale on diamond,
track, and river. Few of them gave him any concern at all. The period of
examination was nearly over, and he had no reason to believe that any of
the men in whom he took an interest were likely to fail in their
examinations.
And it was a terrible shock to him, therefore, when, on the very eve of
commencement, as he sat in the baseball dressing room, Sam, the old
rubber, brought him some papers that he had picked up.
“Doan’ know who all these hyah papers b’longs to, Marse Dick,” said Sam,
handing him a folded packet. “Ain’t nevah done learned to read.”
“All right, Sam,” said Dick. “Some one dropped them, I suppose. I’ll see
who they belong to and give them to their owners. Thanks.”
Idly, he looked at the papers. He had no intention of reading them, or
trying to find out their nature, but he had to look to see who should
receive them. He was dressing early after a brisk afternoon’s practice,
to keep an engagement that evening, and the players had not yet come in.
And, as he looked at the papers in his hand, his face went white.
They were complete notes of a course in which the examination had been
held that morning, a senior course in history, arranged so that they
could be easily and conveniently referred to. He knew the way in which
they were arranged—it was a system of cribbing very old, but very seldom
used at Yale. And the thing that appalled him was the name at the head
of the sheet—for it was that of Sam Taylor. Swiftly he ran through the
other papers—they were simply a part of the same crooked device, and one
of the other sheets was marked as the property of Bob Gray.
For a few moments Dick was stunned. He didn’t know what to do. He felt
that he might be able to excuse himself to himself for saying nothing
about his discovery. It had been made by accident. Perhaps he had not
even the right to take advantage of it. But Dick was not able, as so
many are, to compromise between right and wrong. He knew that the honor
system was supposed to prevail at Yale—that any student who discovered,
no matter how, that another was cheating, was required to report that
fact, and he felt himself to be bound by that.
Suddenly his face cleared.
“They must have just made these up as notes in preparing for the
examination,” he said, to himself. “This is no proof at all that they
did anything wrong. I am probably making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Just then Sherman, the captain of the team, walked in.
“Hello, Tom,” said Dick, with a cheerful smile. He was very fond of the
first baseman, who had made such a fine leader for Yale’s great baseball
team on the field. “How about exams? All through now?”
“All through,” said Sherman, with a sigh of relief. “That modern history
this morning was the last. Gee! that was a stiff paper. I was worried
about Taylor and Gray, too. They had to take a chance on it without any
special preparation. But they seemed to go through swimmingly. Finished
before any one. Funny thing, too. Give a dog a bad name—you know the
rest. Well, about an hour after we got started, Canfield got suspicious,
I thought. Anyhow, he sneaked down the room, and got behind Sam Taylor.
Sam was looking at something, but when he felt Canfield behind him, he
held up a bit of paper to him to look at, and Canfield just grinned and
walked away.”
Dick was mightily disturbed by what Sherman told him. It seemed to
destroy his hopes that the papers he had found were innocent.
Dejectedly, letting his engagement go by default, he waited for the two
seniors, who were to be Yale’s battery in the second game against
Harvard, to return. And when they did, waiting for Taylor to get
dressed, he called him aside.
“Did you lose any papers, Taylor?” he asked him gravely.
“Don’t think so,” said Taylor, with a laugh. “I never carry many.”
But his hand went to his breast pocket, and suddenly his face went
white. He stammered, and then colored, in much confusion.
“By Jove,” he said, “I don’t see—yes, I did lose something, Mr.
Merriwell. Or, rather, I remember leaving it in my room. Mighty careless
of me, too.”
“What was it you lost, Taylor?” asked Dick, more gravely than ever.
Everything was working together to confirm the suspicions he had so
reluctantly formed.
“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Merriwell,” said Taylor, looking a little
surprised, and rather angry. “It was a private affair—that’s why I was
rather annoyed at finding I had been so careless.”
Dick suddenly held out the folded papers, still looking just as they had
when Sam handed the packet to him.
“Was it this you lost?” he said.
Taylor’s eyes lighted up as they fell on the packet, and he reached a
hand to take it. But suddenly he drew it back.
“I thought for a moment—no, it isn’t,” he said. His confusion was
evident. Dick, looking at him with concealed sorrow, thought his
confusion was that of guilt. It certainly seemed so for the moment.
Dick Merriwell was almost dazed as he left the dressing room, and,
catching a street car, made his way back to New Haven. The whole affair
puzzled and disgusted him. He had trusted Taylor implicitly of late. The
senior had aroused his anger and suspicion early in the year, but he had
proved himself sincerely repentant since then, and it cut Dick to the
quick to think that Taylor had proved himself, by the meanest of college
crimes, unworthy of the forgiveness Dick had given him so freely.
“I’ve got to put this up to the dean,” he decided finally. “I may be
wrong, but there’s enough evidence here for me to feel that I would be
shirking my duty if I didn’t see to it that the whole business was
investigated.”
* * * * *
Parker and Foote had taken their dinner together at an eating house,
and, when the meal was over, they lighted cigars and walked toward the
campus.
“I don’t see that you’re doing much,” sneered Parker. “You talked mighty
big about your plans, and about how you were going to queer Merriwell.
What have you done?”
“I’m sorry for Merriwell,” said Foote, without giving a direct reply.
“He talks a lot about high standards of morality and all that sort of
thing. He’s got a nice little problem on his hands now, and he’s going
to decide it the way any other man would. He thinks it’s in his power to
spoil the chances of two of his precious team from graduating. And he’s
going to keep quiet. You mark my words. He doesn’t know, you see, that
I’ve taken steps to see that the dean and others know of the evidence
he’s got.
“Every one will know about it by to-morrow morning, and he’ll be sorry
that he didn’t practice what he preached. He’ll find that by keeping
quiet he’s just got himself into a hole without doing his friends or his
team any good. And I guess that will be about the finish for Mr. Dick
Merriwell’s pose of being superior to every one in Yale. But, if that
isn’t enough, I’ve got another scheme that will settle it in a hurry.”
“You’re blamed mysterious,” said Parker angrily. “Why don’t you tell me
what you’re doing? Hello! What’s the row about?”
They had come to the entrance to Dwight Hall, and there they found an
excited crowd of students. They heard the news from half a dozen men at
once.
An investigation was to be made of the senior examination in modern
history, held that morning, and it was rumored that charges of cribbing
had been made against Gray and Taylor. In any case, those two men were
suspended from the baseball team until further notice. No reason was
given for this action in the notice, signed by the dean, which had
announced the suspension, but every one seemed to be able to explain it.
Foote’s jaw dropped as he turned to Parker.
“By Jove!” he cried. “He fooled me there—he’s had sense enough to save
himself with the faculty. I didn’t think he’d go to the dean. However,
I’ll find some way to queer him yet.”
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