RIGHT END EMERSON
THE FOOTBALL ELEVEN BOOKS
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
LEFT END EDWARDS
LEFT TACKLE THAYER
LEFT GUARD GILBERT
CENTER RUSH ROWLAND
FULL-BACK FOSTER
QUARTER-BACK BATES
LEFT HALF HARMON
RIGHT END EMERSON
[Illustration: Now he was blocked, now he had broken free again!]
Right End Emerson
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF
LEFT END EDWARDS,
LEFT TACKLE THAYER,
FULL-BACK FOSTER, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
LESLIE CRUMP
[Illustration]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1922
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A TIP TO THE WAITER 1
II PARTNERS CONFER 15
III A NEW YEAR BEGINS 26
IV JIMMY READS THE PAPER 37
V RUSSELL EXPLAINS 45
VI BILLY CROCKER DROPS IN 54
VII JIMMY GOES SHOPPING 65
VIII THE SECOND TEAM COACH 78
IX AT THE “SIGN OF THE FOOTBALL” 88
X JIMMY CONSPIRES 104
XI FAIR PROMISES 114
XII BACK IN HARNESS 124
XIII THE NEW ASSISTANT 136
XIV JIMMY’S DAY 148
XV MR. CROCKER CALLS 162
XVI ALTON SQUEEZES THROUGH 173
XVII STICK CONFIDES HIS TROUBLES 184
XVIII NOT IN THE GAME 195
XIX STICK FINDS A BUYER 211
XX JIMMY HAS A CLEW 224
XXI STICK SELLS OUT 238
XXII MR. PULSIFER SHAKES HIS HEAD 248
XXIII A MEMBER OF THE TEAM 255
XXIV “WE’VE WON!” 263
ILLUSTRATIONS
Now he was blocked, now he had broken free again!
_Frontispiece_
PAGE
“Rather an unusual proceeding, Emerson,” pursued the doctor 48
“Yes,” said Russell faintly. “I’m--fearfully--soft!” 132
“I wish to goodness I’d never gone into this fool thing” 170
RIGHT END EMERSON
CHAPTER I
A TIP TO THE WAITER
A very gaudy red automobile whirled up the circling drive that led to
the white-pillared portico of the big hotel at Pine Harbor, announced
its approach with a wheezy groan of the horn and came to a sudden stop
before the steps, a stop so disconcerting to the extreme right-hand
occupant of the single seat that he narrowly escaped a head-on
collision with the wind-shield. Taking advantage of the impetus that
had unseated him, he flung his legs over the door and alighted on the
well-kept gravel.
“This car may be sort of cranky when it comes to _going_, Mac,” he
said, “but she sure can _stop_!”
“Well, she got you here,” chuckled Harley McLeod. “Give the kid a hand
with the suit-cases, Jimmy. Pile out, Stan, and I’ll take Matilda
around to the garage and give her some oats. You fellows register, and
tell the guy at the desk that we want one room and no bath; tell him
we had a bath last week. Don’t let him soak you, either. We’ve got
four more days of this foreign travel before we get home, and the old
sock’s mighty near empty. Something about twelve dollars for the crowd
will be pretty near right.”
“Fine,” agreed the third member of the trio, sarcastically, viewing as
he spoke the long front of the building and its general air of hauteur
and expensiveness. “Twelve dollars apiece is likely to be closer to it.
If you want economy, Mac, why the dickens do you pick out the swellest
joints on the route?”
“Well,” answered McLeod, glancing rearward to see if the suit-cases had
been wrested from their place, “we don’t seem to have much luck that
way, and that’s a fact. Gee, that place last night pretty nigh ruined
me! You do your best, anyway. All clear, Jimmy? Let go their heads!
Back in a minute!” The small red car leaped forward impetuously, dashed
down the drive to the road, swerved precipitately to the right and
was lost to sight--if not to hearing--beyond a hedge. Stanley Hassell
joined Jimmy Austen and together they followed a small uniformed youth,
laden with three suit-cases, up the steps, across the wide porch and
into the hotel.
It was Stanley who took the pen from the politely extended hand of the
clerk and inscribed the names of his party on the register. After each
name he added “N. Y. City.” This was less truthful than convenient,
for although he and Harley McLeod lived in widely separate sections
of that far-stretching metropolis, Jimmy hailed from Elizabeth, New
Jersey. But, as Stanley had explained soon after the beginning of
their two-weeks tour in Mac’s disguised flivver, “Elizabeth, N. J.”
was too long to write. Besides, he added, it wouldn’t be long before
Elizabeth became a part of New York, anyway, and there was no harm in
anticipating.
“We’d like a room for three,” announced Stanley when he had put down
the last dot. “With single beds, if possible, and without a bath. As
reasonable a room as you have, please.”
The clerk, a carefully attired gentleman, frowned hopelessly. “I’m
afraid we haven’t a room with three single beds,” he said, as he
consulted a book. “I can give you a nice large room on the front of the
house, however. That has a double bed in it, and I can have a cot put
in also. I’m afraid that’s the best--”
“What’s the price of it?” interrupted Stanley anxiously.
“How long are you staying?”
“Just overnight.”
“Eight dollars, in that case.”
“For the bunch?” inquired Jimmy eagerly.
The clerk shook his head and smiled again, this time commiseratingly.
“Eight dollars a day apiece,” he said in his nicely modulated tones.
“Our regular price, gentlemen.”
It was Stanley’s turn to do a little head-shaking. “Look here,” he
confided earnestly, “you’ve got us wrong. We weren’t thinking of
_buying_ the room; we just want to _rent_ it. Now, what about a room on
the _back_ of the house? Something about fifteen dollars for the three
of us? We aren’t crazy about the view, anyway; besides, we couldn’t see
much at night, could we? You just take another peep into the old book
there and talk reasonable!”
The gentleman seemed inclined to be haughty for a moment, but Stanley’s
smile was captivating and he went back to the book good-naturedly
enough. “There’s a room on the third floor,” he announced at last.
“It’s rather small, but perhaps it will do. The rate is sixteen-fifty.”
Stanley mused a moment, mentally dividing sixteen dollars and fifty
cents by three, and then nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “Guess that’ll
have to do.”
“Front! Show the gentlemen to 87!”
“Say,” broke in Jimmy with very evident anxiety, “that includes meals,
doesn’t it?”
This time the clerk smiled quite humanly. “Certainly,” he replied. “We
are on the American Plan.”
“Idiot!” breathed Stanley as they turned away.
“That’s all right,” replied Jimmy doggedly. “It’s just as well to be
sure. Look at the time they held us up for seven dollars apiece and
then we found we had to pay extra to eat!”
“That was in a city, you chump,” reminded Stanley. They bade the boy
with the luggage wait a minute, but Harley McLeod came hurrying in just
then and they began the ascent of the stairs. Harley showed a wrathful
countenance.
“Those robbers want three dollars for the car!” he sputtered.
“Three dollars for the car?” echoed Jimmy. “Let ’em have it, I say.
It’s worth five, maybe, but three dollars is three dollars, and the
room’s costing us sixteen-fifty--”
“_What!_” exclaimed Harley, standing stock-still on the landing.
“Sixteen _dollars_?”
“And fifty cents,” confirmed Jimmy cheerfully. “The fifty cents is for
the food.”
Harley McLeod stared darkly at Stanley. “You’re a swell little
bargainer, you are! Why, that’s five and a half apiece!”
“Well, what of it?” asked Stanley huffily. “We had to pay six and a
half last night, didn’t we? Say, if you don’t like the way I do it, why
don’t you do it yourself? If you think you can get better terms--”
“That includes the meals, Mac,” interrupted Jimmy soothingly. “I asked
the Duke of Argyle, and he said so.”
“Oh, shut up,” begged Harley. “Gosh, these summer hotels are regular
robber dens! All right, I’ve still got a few sous left, and when I’m
broke I’ll borrow from Jimmy. Say, where is this room? On the roof?”
“Third floor, sir,” answered the bell-boy. “Nice and cool up here.”
“Ought to be if altitude has anything to do with temperature,” agreed
Harley with sarcasm. “What time’s dinner, son?”
“Seven, sir, and runs to eight-thirty.”
“And it’s only a bit after five,” groaned Jimmy. “I’ll tell you
one thing, fellows, right now, and that’s this: When the Earl of
Buckminster down there charged me five-fifty he committed a fatal
error. If I don’t eat five-fifty worth of food at dinner to-night you
fellows can throw me in the ocean!”
“Not so horrid,” commented Stanley as they strode after the boy into
the apartment. “Small, but sufficient, eh?”
“Do they think we’re going to sleep three in a bed?” demanded Harley,
aghast.
“They’re going to put in a cot for you,” said Jimmy comfortingly.
“For me!” Harley viewed him coldly. “How do you attain that condition,
Jimmy? What’s the matter with your sleeping on the cot?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t rest well on the things,” he answered.
“Maybe Stan had better--”
“We’ll draw lots,” said Stanley. He tossed a dime to the grinning
bell-boy and then pulled three strands from the tattered fringe of the
straw matting rug. “Short piece gets the cot. Help yourself, Mac.”
Stanley himself fell heir to the shortest straw and good-naturedly
accepted his fate. “I’m the smallest, anyway,” he said. “Let’s wash up
and look the place over. Any one for a swim?”
“I’d like a swim,” said Jimmy, “but it always gives me a fierce
appetite, and I’m hungry enough right now to chew nails! Let’s sit on
the porch and look wealthy. You don’t get so hungry if you sit still.”
Some two hours later the three boys were conducted across a large
dining-room by an awe-inspiring head-waiter and seated at a table set
for four. Jimmy looked approvingly at the crowded menu and passed it
across to Harley. “Let’s not be choosey,” he suggested. “Let’s start
right at the top and take things as they come.”
“Well, we can’t eat three kinds of soup,” said Harley.
“I could,” Jimmy replied. “But I’m going to have some clams first.
Which soup is the fillingest?”
A boy of about their own age, which is to say seventeen or eighteen,
began pouring water into the glasses, which led Jimmy to observe for
the first time that the waiters were all masculine and youthful, though
most of them were older than their own attendant. Just then Harley’s
foot collided painfully with Jimmy’s ankle and the latter emitted a
loud howl of anguish that attracted the disapproving curiosity of the
neighboring diners.
“Shut up, you idiot!” whispered Stanley severely.
“That’s all right,” returned Jimmy aggrievedly, rubbing the injured
ankle under the table, “but he pretty near killed me with that big hoof
of his! Gee, Mac, what’s the prodigious conception?”
“Sorry,” muttered Harley, his eyes on the menu. “Do we all want clams?
All right, clams for three, then.” This latter to the waiter at his
elbow.
“Will you order your soup and fish now, please?” asked the waiter. “It
saves time.”
“Sure. Let’s see. I’ll have the cream of celery. What’s yours, Stan?”
“Same, I guess.”
“Oxen tails for me,” said Jimmy. “And a large portion of that bluing
fish.”
The waiter took himself off and Harley leaned toward Jimmy with a
scowl. “Didn’t you see who that was, you dumb-bell?”
“See who what was?” asked Jimmy, glancing around blankly.
“The waiter, of course.”
“No, who was he? Charlie Chaplin?”
“Emerson, one of our fellows. You know him. A junior, I think.”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know any Emerson, Mac. You mean the chap
that’s waiting on us is an Alton fellow?”
“Sure! What did you think I kicked you for?”
“I thought you just wanted to show your love for me. What’s he doing
here?”
“Waiting on table,” replied Stanley. “Haven’t you any eyes?”
“Yes, but I mean-- Well, it seems a funny thing for an Alton fellow,
doesn’t it?”
“Guess all these waiters are students,” returned Stanley. “College men,
a lot of them. I suppose Emerson needs the money.”
“Well, yes, he would,” agreed Jimmy readily, “if he’s staying at this
joint. I must have a look at him. I dare say I know him by sight.
What’s he do?”
Harley shrugged. “Nothing much, I guess. Seems to me, though, he was
playing on the second team last fall.”
“Football?”
Harley nodded, and Stanley confirmed him. “Yes, he’s been on the second
a couple of years. You’ll remember him when you see him, Jimmy, for you
must have played with him year before last.”
“Well, if he isn’t any faster on the field than he is here,” Jimmy
grumbled, “it’s no wonder he’s never made the first. Do you fellows
know him? I didn’t notice any warm hand-clasps!”
“Oh, I know him to nod to,” replied Harley, “but you don’t exactly
expect to find your school fellows waiting on table in a public hotel.
I dare say he doesn’t want to be recognized. Anyway, he didn’t speak to
me.”
“Suppose he thought it was up to you to signal first,” said Jimmy.
“After all, Mac, waiting in a summer hotel isn’t much different from
waiting at college, and lots of corking chaps have done that. Here he
is now, I guess. Making good time through a broken field, too! Just
missed a tackle then! If that other fellow had got him it would have
been good-by, clams! Yes, I’ve seen him lots of times, but I never knew
his name.”
While the waiter placed the orders on the table Jimmy observed him.
He was a well-made boy, slim yet muscular, a fact not entirely hidden
by the ill-fitting waiter’s jacket that he wore. He had brown eyes,
rather quiet seeming eyes, and brown hair that was very carefully
brushed away from his forehead, and a fairly short nose. On the whole,
Jimmy decided, Emerson, so far as his appearance went, was a credit
to Alton Academy. That he had recognized the trio was very evident
to the observer, and that he had no intention of making use of his
slight acquaintance with Harley was equally evident. He spoke only when
addressed and then carefully avoided the speaker’s eyes. Jimmy didn’t
know whether Emerson felt any embarrassment, but he somehow wished
that the impressive head waiter had seated them elsewhere. It was
rather jarring to be served in this fashion by a chap you were likely
to meet on the Green a week or so hence!
But Jimmy soon forgot that, for he was extremely hungry, the food was
excellent, the waiter, in spite of having two other tables to serve,
attended to their wants in quite professional fashion and the dinner
passed off pleasantly and expeditiously. Toward the last of it Stanley
presented a problem to them. “Say, fellows, how about tips?” he asked.
Harley frowned. “I was wondering,” he said. “Of course these fellows
must take tips. I’ll bet the hotel doesn’t pay them much. But, just the
same, it sort of goes against the grain, Stan.”
“Leave it till morning,” advised Jimmy. “Then we can slip a dollar
under a plate when he isn’t looking.”
“A dollar!” ejaculated Harley. “Listen to the millionaire! It’s always
been fifty cents for the bunch so far.”
“Oh, well, this is different,” replied Jimmy. “This guy’s one of us,
you see. You can’t be a piker with one of your own School!”
And so the matter was left, and they moved from the dining-room rather
ponderously and sighingly seated themselves in three rocking chairs on
the broad veranda and, almost in silence, watched a huge orange-colored
moon arise beyond the rim of the quiet ocean. The longest speech of
the ensuing quarter of an hour was made by Jimmy. “Allowing fifty cents
for breakfast and a dollar for my third of the bed to-night, I figure
that I’ll be just twenty-five cents ahead of the house when we go our
way!”
Later, having decided to play some pool as an aid to digestion, Jimmy
paused as they passed through the lobby and fixed what he afterwards
explained was an expression of triumphant gloat on the clerk behind
the desk. This expression he continued until the clerk, happening to
glance toward him, returned his look with one of mingled surprise and
concern. Thereupon Jimmy ceased gloating and hurried after the others,
who, meanwhile, had reached the billiard room just in time to secure
the last pool table ahead of two disgruntled elderly plutocrats in
dinner-jackets. These latter gentlemen, grumbling their displeasure,
seated themselves, behind large and expensive cigars, on a leathern
divan and watched the play of the trio with basilisk stares that
interfered seriously with Stanley’s game. Harley and Jimmy refused
to be intimidated, but after five games, all won by Harley, they
acknowledged defeat and yielded the table to the besiegers. However, it
was just on nine o’clock then, and, as Stanley wisely observed, they
were paying good money for that room and so might as well make use
of it. At ten they were fast asleep, as was befitting those who had
traveled one hundred and eight miles since morning in Matilda!
Yet it was well after nine o’clock the next day when they descended
for breakfast. They were unanimous in declaring regretfully that they
were not really hungry, but they managed to do fairly well with cereal,
eggs, steak, hot biscuits and coffee. Their waiter again attended to
them in a manner that was beyond criticism, and Jimmy acknowledged a
warm admiration for his skill and dexterity. “Some garsong, if you
ask me,” said Jimmy. “Has everything under perfect control and hasn’t
dropped a plate yet!”
“I feel a bit mean about not speaking to him,” said Stanley. “After
all, he’s one of us, and we know it, and he knows we know it, and--”
“Yes, and he doesn’t want us to do anything of the sort,” interrupted
Jimmy. “The chap’s incog. Let us--let us respect his wishes, eh?”
Harley looked relieved. “Jimmy’s right, I think. Besides, it isn’t as
if we were personal friends. We only know him by sight, as you might
say. Who’s got a dollar?”
Jimmy produced a crumpled bill with less hesitation than usual and
curled it cunningly under his plate. Then they departed hurriedly
before the waiter returned. Half an hour later Matilda jumped away on
the next lap of her journey, honking asthmatically as she disappeared
from sight.
Russell Emerson, clearing the dishes from the table lately occupied by
his school-mates, discovered the crumpled dollar bill and frowned at
it. Then the frown vanished and he shrugged his shoulders and slipped
the money philosophically into his pocket.