THE DUKE STARTS SOMETHING
The day after the Forest Hill defeat was warm and languid, more like
a November day. Gerald had gone to Sound View the evening before,
as was his custom when his father was at home, and Kendall, having
attended church in the forenoon and eaten a dinner at the training
table for which he had had little appetite, was at a loss how to spend
his afternoon. There were fellows whom he might look up and who would
doubtless be glad to see him, but somehow he didn’t feel very sociable.
For one thing, he had been through forty-eight minutes of hard play the
day before and felt lame and battered, although there were no scars
to show. Perhaps, too, the weather induced a feeling of apathy; it
was too warm. He wrote his Sunday letter, taking a good deal of time
over it, and managing to fill six pages. But after that was sealed and
addressed there seemed nothing left to do. Gerald had suggested that
he might come up after dinner and take him to ride in the automobile,
but evidently Gerald had changed his mind. The dormitory was quiet and
probably pretty well deserted, for it was no sort of a day to stay
indoors. Kendall finally reached that conclusion himself and, pulling
a cap on to the back of his head, he sauntered along the hall and down
the stairs and so out into the afternoon world, wincing now and then
when his sore muscles protested and dimly oppressed with the emptiness
of existence. Kendall’s condition of mind was, had he but known it,
no uncommon one for the football player the day after a hard game and
a defeat. One cares very little for bruises and weariness after a
victory, but a defeat takes all the glory from them.
There was a handful of fellows on the steps as he came out and he spoke
to them, but had no wish to join them. There were other groups in front
of Whitson and Oxford, and several boys were lolling on the grass
near the flag-pole on The Prospect. One or two had books, but it was
a noticeable fact that none was reading. Even the effort of holding a
book was too much on such a day. Kendall nodded now and then, refused
an invitation to join the group on the grass and skirted Oxford with
a dim idea of walking down to the river. But back of Merle he heard a
hail and, turning, saw The Duke waving to him across the yard. The
Duke was resplendent to-day. There was a suit of blue-gray flannel, a
vividly pink shirt, dark blue socks, tan shoes and a green tie. And
The Duke seemed in high feather. Kendall sat down on the step of Merle
and waited for the gorgeous one to join him. He had not seen The Duke
since shortly after the game the day before and now he wondered whether
that youth had got into difficulties over the affair of Mr. Gibson.
He certainly didn’t have the appearance of a fellow in trouble! One
would have thought, seeing him coming along the path, hands in pockets,
whistling cheerfully, that he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Greetings, O doughty warrior!” saluted The Duke.
“Hello,” replied Kendall apathetically. “Where’s the party?”
“Party? Oh, you refer to my chaste get-up.” The Duke viewed his apparel
approvingly. “Some togs, what?” He seated himself beside Kendall.
“There’s no party, Sir Knight. I have merely dressed myself according
to my mood. My mood to-day is one of triumph and joy. Where’s Gerald?”
“Home,” replied Kendall moodily.
“He’s a lucky chap to have a home around the corner. Be it never so
humble there’s no place like home. What’s the matter with you to-day?
Got the dumps?”
“N-no.”
“Meaning ye-es? Perk up! Observe the cerulean sky and the waving tree
tops, the bright sun and the――the――――”
“It’s a beast of a day.”
“_What?_ It’s a wonderful day! What do you want? Rain? Snow? Hail?
Well, if the things I’ve mentioned don’t cheer you, look at my shirt!
That ought to drive away any case of blues!”
“It looks sort of pink,” said Kendall, smiling with an effort.
“_Sort_ of pink! Sort of _pink_! Man alive, it’s the quintessence of
pink! It’s the pinkest thing that ever happened. That’s why I bought
it. Got it cheap, too. They’d had it in the store for years and years.
No one would buy it. No one had the courage to. But pink suits me, you
know. Goes well with my shell-tint complexion.”
“But why the green tie?”
“A happy conceit of mine own, O Youth of the Festive Toe! I am
impersonating a carnation. The dash of green represents the leaves. Get
me? Pretty thought, what?”
“Very. And the rest of the――the things? Blue socks――――”
“Contrast, dear boy, contrast! Also variety. Also gladness and joy and
triumph. Come on!” The Duke jumped up gayly.
“Where?” asked Kendall with no enthusiasm.
“Where? Anywhere! Who knows? Let us start out in search of adventure.
This is no day to mope and pine. I am consumed by a desire to start
something!”
“You started something yesterday, didn’t you? How did you come out? Did
Collins get after you?”
“Oh, that?” The Duke smiled carelessly and brushed an imaginary speck
from his sleeve. “That is too trifling to speak of.”
“What did he say?”
“Say? What was there he could say? I had merely to explain the
circumstances to him, Burtis. After all, he is reasonable――for a
faculty. Or mayhap I spoke convincingly. In any case”――The Duke waved
a hand magnificently――“we parted with sentiments of mutual respect and
esteem. If you will join me in a stroll toward yon purling stream I
will regale your ears with a brief narration of the event.”
“All right.” Kendall pulled himself up with a sigh and they moved on.
“We met by appointment,” continued The Duke gayly. “Collins made
the appointment. In his study. He suggested eight o’clock as a time
convenient to him and, as I am noted for my good nature, I agreed.
Also, as I have ever held punctuality to be the soul of wit or the
thief of time or the shortest way home or something――I forget the exact
quotation――I was there on the stroke.”
“I’ll bet you were!” agreed Kendall grimly. The Duke smiled.
“On the very dot, O Wisdom Personified. And then――we talked. At first
he did most of it. It seems”――The Duke interrupted the narrative to
chuckle――“it seems that our friend Gibson had the brilliant thought
to call up Central and tell his troubles. Central thereupon called up
Collins. I could speak harshly to Central about that, but as it has all
turned out satisfactorily I won’t. Well, Collins formed himself into a
rescue party and trailed over to Oxford. Having liberated our prisoner
they passed the time of day and in the course of the conversation Mr.
Gibson, let us hope inadvertently, gave a description of my physical
appearance and Collins, being a great friend of mine, recognized the
portrait, or thought he did. Hence the appointment. Of course I don’t
know just what those two said to each other, but I have a strong hunch
that Collins wormed out of Mr. Gibson the fact that he was a Broadwood
unfortunate and surmised the fact that he was, to put it courteously,
over here to rubber at our splendid team of football heroes.”
“What time is it?” asked Kendall.
“Time? I don’t know,” replied The Duke, fumbling at his watch-fob.
“Why? Got something on?”
“No, I was only thinking that if you didn’t get started pretty soon it
would be supper time.”
“Oh!” The Duke laughed. “You have a dry wit, my friend, a dry wit and a
ready. Well, to cut out the non-essentials and the rhetorical effects,
Burtis, Collins asked me if I had enticed Mr. Gibson to the ’phone. Of
course I ’lowed as how I had. Then he asked me why. ‘Because,’ quoth
I, ‘he was over here to spy on the team and Payson wanted to try out
some of the new plays for the Broadwood game.’ ‘But you told him that
he was wanted at the telephone,’ says Collins. ‘Wasn’t that a lie,
Wellington?’ ‘No, sir,’ I retorted, ‘not at all. We wanted him at the
telephone so he wouldn’t see what was going on at the field.’ Whereupon
Collins said ‘Um’ in two or three different tones, and looked kind
of funny at me. Of course I was looking as nearly like an innocent
little George Washington as I knew how. ‘But still, Wellington, hardly
truthful, eh?’ he asked. I considered. ‘Perhaps not strictly, sir,’ I
said, ‘but we had to do something, and what else was there?’ Well, I
had him stumped there! He opened his mouth a couple of times, but he
couldn’t answer. There _wasn’t_ anything else, was there? Of course
not. Collins saw it, too, after a minute, but he wouldn’t say so. He
hemmed a few hems and hawed a few haws and smiled in his funny dry
way. And finally he said, ‘Wellington, if you applied some of your
ingenuity to mastering your studies you’d be better off.’ I said, ‘Yes,
sir.’ Then he frowned and waved his hand, you know, like that. ‘You
may go,’ he said. And I thanked him and went. Only when I got to the
door he stopped me. ‘Mind you,’ said he, ‘you’re not to think that I
approve of what you did, Wellington, because I don’t. It smacks too
much of deceit. It would have been better had you gone to a telephone
and really called him up!’ ‘I never thought of that!’ I said. Then he
grinned a little, and I grinned and came out!”
Kendall laughed. “The next time we’d better consult Collins, I guess! I
suspect he was just as pleased as we were that Gibson got left.”
“Probably. Aside from being a member of faculty he’s fairly human.
Anyhow, I got off easy. Hence my mood of triumph. Let’s go for a
paddle.”
They had reached the boathouse. The porch and float were well sprinkled
with fellows and the river as far as they could see was dotted with
canoes and skiffs.
“I don’t know how to row,” Kendall demurred.
“Who wants to row? Can you paddle?”
“Less than I can row.”
“Well, you go as ballast then. I’ve got a canoe in here somewhere if it
hasn’t fallen to pieces. Haven’t been in it since Spring. Come on.”
Kendall followed the other into the boathouse and helped him lift a
battered green canvas canoe from the rack. When it was outside The
Duke viewed it dubiously. “Looks sort of leaky, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“Guess we’d better take a bailer along. Hi, Lin, got something I can
bail out with?”
Lin Johnson picked up a tin can from the bottom of the canoe he was
disembarking from and tossed it across. The Duke caught it deftly,
dropped it in the bottom of the green canoe and pushed the latter into
the water. In a minute they were afloat, Kendall facing The Duke from
the bow and watching rather enviously the skill with which the latter
managed a paddle from the blade of which a good two inches had been
splintered. They went up the little river, meeting other craft and
exchanging greetings. Once The Duke remarked laughingly:
“Funny how tickled everyone is to see me to-day. It pays to travel in
good company.”
“How do you mean?” asked Kendall innocently.
“Why, don’t you see how cordial the fellows are? That’s because you’re
here, O Mighty Warrior. If I were alone they’d just nod and say ‘’Lo,
Duke!’ Now they nearly fall out of their canoes being polite!”
“Nonsense!” said Kendall, blushing a little. “Why, lots of those
fellows we’ve passed hardly know me.”
“That’s only because you won’t let them. They’d all be tickled to death
to be in my place. Why, my stock will go up a hundred per cent this
afternoon!”
Kendall smiled doubtfully. “I guess they’d a good deal rather know you
than me,” he murmured.
“Think so, my Modest Violet? You miss your guess, then. I wonder if
you’re as innocent as you seem, Burtis.”
“Innocent?”
“Yes. You’re really a school hero, you know, but you don’t seem to be
on to the fact. You could put on all sorts of lugs and the fellows
would stand for it, but instead you hardly notice anyone and go around
looking as humble as――as a worm! Of course I’m not saying it isn’t a
clever scheme, because the less you seem to want to know fellows the
more anxious they’ll be to have you. Get me? And being modest is a good
game, too. Lots of fellows in your place would be swaggering all around
the shop, patronizing us lesser mortals. We’d stand for it all right
enough, but we’d resent it a bit, too, and if you ever came a cropper,
fell down in the big game, you know, or something of that sort, how
we’d jump on you! No, a fellow can have a swelled head and get by with
it if he’s making good, but you don’t love him any more for it. Your
way is much better, Burtis.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kendall a trifle
indignantly. “I’m not a hero and don’t pretend to be. I don’t want to
be and I’m not trying to be!”
The Duke grinned. “Of course not. I understand. You’re not one of our
star players on the football team and you don’t win games for us by the
niftiest kicking that’s ever been seen in these parts. You seem to, but
you don’t. Appearances are against you.”
“You’re an idiot,” grunted Kendall.
“Oh, certainly!”
“Besides, it’s silly to say I don’t want to know fellows. I do. There
are lots of tip-top fellows I’d like awfully well to know, but I can’t
butt in the way――the way――――”
“The way I do,” suggested The Duke helpfully.
“The way some fellows do.”
“I really believe you mean it!” marveled The Duke. “Why, you poor
benighted heathen, don’t you realize that there’s hardly a fellow in
school who wouldn’t be proud to paddle you up and down the river all
the afternoon just for the glory of being seen with you?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Kendall shortly, “and neither do you. And I wish
you’d stop kidding me, Duke.” Kendall was looking red and embarrassed,
and The Duke, observing, took pity on him.
“All right,” he said soothingly. “You’re a mere worm after all, Burtis.
No one loves you. And when a fellow falls into the river trying to be
polite it’s just because he wants me to notice him. But will I? I will
not! They can drown before I’ll give them a glance!”
“You’re an awful idiot,” said Kendall smilingly.
“You said that before and so there must be something in it,” was the
cheerful response. “And now here is the island, and with your approval
I suggest we get out and find a nice warm spot and lie on our backs and
think great thoughts.”
So the canoe was pulled up on the little strip of beach at Flat Island
and the boys threw themselves down on the bank in the sunlight. It was
getting toward four o’clock and a slight chill was making itself felt.
But in the lee of the trees it was still comfortably warm. The Duke put
his hands under his head, cocked one foot over his knee and gazed up
into the peaceful blue sky. Kendall followed his example and for the
space of several minutes nothing was said. Finally, though, Kendall
broke the silence.
“Did you――did you really mean any of that stuff you said awhile ago in
the canoe, Duke?” he asked.
“What stuff?” asked the other drowsily.
“About――about fellows being willing to know me.”
“Of course I meant it. You, my shy and retiring friend, are one of our
notables. We’re proud of you because you play good football and won the
Broadwood game for us last year. And because you kept Forest Hill from
shutting us out yesterday. We’re proud of any fellow here who does what
he’s set to do and does it well, but when a fellow wins a game from
Broadwood for us we put our heads in the dust and say, ‘Walk on us, O
Conqueror!’”
“That sounds silly,” objected Kendall.
“Then it’s the way I say it. It really isn’t silly. Look here, didn’t
you want to run out and hug Dan Vinton last Spring when he hit out
that two-bagger that tied the Broadwood game? Weren’t you proud of
him? Didn’t you think he was about the finest thing that ever played
baseball?”
“You bet!”
“Well, there you are! You did the same thing, didn’t you, last Fall?
And you’re still doing it, aren’t you? That’s why you’re some pumpkins
here, old scout; why the Prep Class youngsters get in your way and
stare at you soulfully until you fall over them. Then they get together
and show the toe you stepped on and boast how much it hurts! That’s why
fellows try to be nice to you, even if you don’t see it, and why dozens
of them will be as sweet as candy to me for days because I know you
well enough to go paddling with you. And that’s why I’m here now. It
isn’t because I care a cent about you; you bore me to death, but I want
the other fellows to see me with you. Reflected glory. Get me?”
Kendall looked startledly at The Duke until the latter began to grin.
Then he smiled and looked relieved.
“I never thought of that,” he murmured. “I――I’m glad.”
“Well, don’t think of it too much, now,” cautioned The Duke. “Perhaps I
oughtn’t to have said anything about it. I guess the reason we all like
you so well is partly because you――because you’re so unconscious of it.
Don’t spoil it, Burtis.”
“I’ll try not to. I don’t more than half believe it, anyway, I guess,”
he answered shyly. “I’d like to think, though, that――that fellows did
like me a little.”
“You may, O Startled Fawn! And if you take my advice you’ll be a
trifle more――more――what’s the word?――responsive. It’s a good thing for
a fellow to have friends. It helps here and hereafter. If you go up
to college you’ll find that having friends there will make a lot of
difference. I’ve never been to college, but that’s what they tell me.
And in the meanwhile if there’s any little thing you’d like――a place on
the hockey team or the baseball nine or next year’s class presidency
or the presidency of your society――what are you, by the way? Oxford,
aren’t you?――just mention the fact quite casually. It’s a good time.
Maybe you won’t get all you want, but it’s a good plan to let fellows
know.”
“I don’t want a thing,” replied Kendall in an alarmed voice.
The Duke laughed. “All right; you needn’t get scared, though. I just
mentioned it. There’s Jensen and Jim Hough coming down the placid
stream. Just for fun, now, let’s see what they do when they catch sight
of us here. Would it be quite convenient for you to sit up?”
“What for?”
“So they can recognize your charming countenance, of course. It’s
dollars to doughnuts they’ll come ashore.”
“I’d rather not,” said Kendall hurriedly.
“Oh, all right. It isn’t necessary, anyhow. I guess they’ve seen you,
for they’re headed this way. And behind them come Perky Davis and
Whitehall. Know Whitehall?”
“I’ve met him. He’s the editor of the paper, isn’t he?”
“He is. Whitehall is our one best high-brow. He’s an awful bore, but
he’s a good-hearted chap for all that. Yes, here they come. Hello,
Jim! Come ashore and hear the birdies sing. Greetings, Jensen, you old
Dutchman. You fellows know Burtis, don’t you? Hello, Perky! Well, well,
if it isn’t our old friend Horace Greeley Whitehall! Wonders never
cease! Step ashore, Horace, and join the crowd! You’re just the fellow
I’ve been wanting to see. I’ve been telling Burtis that he ought to get
out and try for the _Scholiast_ next term.”
“Really?” asked Whitehall, turning eagerly to Kendall. “By Jove,
Burtis, I wish you would, you know! We need fellows of your kind on the
paper!”
“That’s what I tell him,” said The Duke mendaciously. “He hasn’t
decided about it yet, you know, but he’s terribly interested, aren’t
you, Burtis?”
“Why――why――why, I think it would be very nice,” stammered Kendall. “Do
you think I could do anything?”
“I don’t know who could if you couldn’t,” responded Whitehall.