TRADE FALLS OFF
The class hockey teams were hard at it by now, for the weather had
settled down to a fine imitation of an old-fashioned winter. The
baseball candidates and the track and field fellows were, perhaps, not
over-enthusiastic about it, and those who played golf made derogatory
remarks anent it, but some seventy boys who swung hockey sticks each
afternoon asked nothing better. The river was frozen five inches
deep and provided even better ice than the first team had on shore.
Two rinks were established opposite the boat house and on those the
four class teams skated and slashed and shouted every afternoon in
preparation for the three or four games which would later decide
the school championship. So far snow had been scarce, but what had
fallen still lay, crusted and glittering. Indoors the track athletes
were awaking from their hibernation and beginning the early drudgery
that was to prepare them for outdoor work. Even baseball was talked,
although indoor practice for that did not begin for another three
weeks. January and February, for those who find no outdoor interests,
are dull months at school, and Toby was very thankful that he had gone
in for hockey.
Business was none too good just now. It is hard to get one’s clothes
soiled when snow covers the world or when one doesn’t get out of doors
often. Of course one would suppose that weather or time of year would
have no effect on the business of pressing trousers and coats, but it
seemed to, and Toby’s trade was almost at a stand-still toward the
beginning of February. When Temple came around to solicit a reinsertion
of Toby’s modest advertisement in _The Scholiast_, the school monthly,
Toby was of two minds, whether to withdraw his card or make it larger.
In the end he decided to offer special prices for February, and Billy
Temple, sitting on the edge of the bed, wrote out the advertisement.
CLOTHES CLEANED AND PRESSED
=Special Reductions for February=
Trousers Cleaned 25 Cents Trousers Pressed 10 Cents
Coats Cleaned 35 Cents Coats Pressed 20 Cents
Suits, including Waistcoats, Suits Pressed 35 Cents
Cleaned 60 Cents
Overcoats in Proportion
=My Work Is Equal to the Best=
Give Me a Trial
GET YOUR WARDROBE IN ORDER NOW FOR SPRING
T. TUCKER, 22 WHITSON HALL
Lack of trade didn’t worry Toby as much as it would have had he not
won that scholarship, but he was glad when, that same evening, young
Lingard knocked apologetically and presented himself and four articles
of apparel to be cleaned and pressed. There was the same suit that Toby
had toilsomely freed from its adornment of green paint, and an extra
pair of trousers. This time the suit was spattered with some red-brown
stuff, the nature of which Tommy Lingard was at a loss, or pretended
to be at a loss, to explain. Toby frowned over it and finally said it
looked like iron rust, but Lingard expressed doubts.
“Well, I dare say it will come out,” said Toby. “Most everything does
except acid. Fellows ruin their things at chemistry and then wonder
why I don’t get the spots out of them. I’ll have these ready to-morrow
evening. By the way, Lingard, you never paid me for the last job, you
know.”
“Didn’t I really?” The boy’s voice expressed the greatest surprise, but
Toby wasn’t fooled. “H-how much was it?”
“Seventy-five,” answered Toby, referring to his memorandum book.
“I’m sorry, really.” Lingard searched his pockets and finally produced
a crumpled dollar bill from some recess, and Toby tried to dig up a
quarter in change. But sixteen cents was the best he could do, and he
was on the point of suggesting that the quarter be applied on the new
account when he remembered the hockey fund. He crossed to the bureau
and pulled the little box from its concealment and abstracted two
dimes and a nickel. Lingard was deeply interested in the gas-stove
when Toby came back――Toby had just finished pressing a pair of his own
trousers――and didn’t turn around until Toby spoke.
“Here you are, Lingard. Twenty-five cents. Much obliged. Will you come
for these or shall I leave them in your room?”
“I’ll come and get them, thanks, Tucker. To-morrow evening, you said?”
“Yes, any time after nine. Good-night.”
Lingard went off and Toby, after draping the garments on a hanger,
turned out his light and padded downstairs to see Arnold. It was
against the rules to use any cleansing fluid in the buildings after
dark and so Toby’s cleansing operations had to be done in the daytime.
He found Arnold and Homer playing host to Fanning and Halliday. There
was a box of biscuits open on the window-seat and Homer had fashioned
a pitcherful of orange-colored liquid which the fellows were drinking
from glasses and tooth-mugs. Homer kept an assortment of bottled
fruit-juices and could be relied on to produce a sweet and sickening
beverage at a moment’s notice. Toby declined the mugful of “Wilkins’
Orange Nectar” offered him, but helped himself to the biscuits and made
himself as comfortable as he could on Arnold’s bed.
“Don’t get the crumbs in there, for the love of lemons,” warned Arnold.
“I never could sleep comfortably on cracker crumbs.”
Homer chuckled. “Say, Arn, remember the time we filled Garfield’s bed
with crackers? Gee, that was a riot!”
“What was it?” prompted Ted Halliday, holding out his glass for more
“nectar.”
“Why, Garfield got fresh one time,” recounted Arnold, “and came in
here when we were out and pied the room. It was an awful mess when I
got back. He had turned all the pictures around, and stuffed a suit of
Homer’s clothes with pillows and put it in my bed, and――oh, just raised
Cain generally. He thought he was awfully funny, I guess. You remember
him, Fan?”
Fanning nodded, but Halliday looked blank.
“A big, round-faced fellow,” reminded Homer. “Roomed in 14 last year,
with Dickerman. Played guard on the second for awhile.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Say, what became of him, anyway? He isn’t here
this year, is he?”
“No, he didn’t come back. Went to Andover or somewhere up that way,”
answered Arnold. “Well, anyway, Homer and I decided we’d get even with
him. Homer’s folks had just sent a box and there was about a half a
dozen boxes of soda crackers in it. So we emptied the lot in Garfield’s
bed. Sort of spread them around neatly and then tidied everything up
again so you wouldn’t ever think it had been touched. But afterwards we
thought that maybe he would just pick the crackers out and eat them.
So we went over and visited him that evening about nine and sat on his
bed. The way――”
“I thought every time we moved he’d hear the silly things go _crunch_!”
laughed Homer. “But he didn’t. We made an awful lot of noise――”
“He wanted us to sit in chairs,” chuckled Arnold, “but we told him we
preferred the bed. Said we were dead tired and wanted to lean back.
After a bit we got to rough-housing, just to finish the job nicely, and
we had it all over the bed, the crackers crunching finely. We had to
shout and howl so he wouldn’t hear them. He said we were a couple of
silly idiots and if we didn’t cut it out ‘Muscles’ would hear the row
and be up. So we let up after we’d rolled all over the bed and said
good-night to him and hoped he’d have a nice, restful sleep, and went
home.”
“Did he?” laughed Fanning.
“Like anything! After his light went out Homer and I opened the door
and listened. We didn’t have to listen long, though. We heard him
mutter something and then there was a roar and he landed out in the
middle of the room, I guess. We saw the light go on again and――well,
we thought we’d better go to bed about then. Which we did, locking
the door very, very carefully first. He almost broke it in before Mr.
Bendix came bounding upstairs to see what the trouble was!”
“Yes,” added Homer, “and the low-life told ‘Muscles’ about it and
showed him the bed! Garfield was one of those chaps who just love a
joke――as long as it isn’t on him!”
“What did ‘Muscles’ do?” asked Halliday delightedly.
“Not a thing. Told Garfield to shake his sheets out and go to bed. But
he wouldn’t speak to either of us for days and days; Garfield, I mean.
Seemed real peeved at us!”
“I’ll bet worse things than that have happened to him at Andover, or
wherever he is,” chuckled Fanning. “It doesn’t take long to find out a
fellow who can’t stand a joke, and then every one has a whack at him.
Garfield was a pill, anyway. I played left half that year on the scrub,
and Garfield was always funking. Just let some one kick him in the
shins and he was ready to quit. Talking about shins, fellows, I wish
you’d see the peach that I’m wearing just now. Every time any fellow
swings his stick it gets my left shin. I’ve got a regular map on it,
with every state a different color. I’m thinking of getting a pair
of leg-guards like Tucker wears. Those shin pads they give us aren’t
any good. Casement doesn’t even know they’re there when he gets to
slashing. I never saw a chap who could bang around with his stick the
way he can, and get away with it. Some day though, he will make me lose
my temper, and when he does he’s going to get something to remember.”
“Tut, tut,” said Halliday, soothingly. “What’s a crack on the shin
between friends? Save your revenge, Fan, and work it off on Broadwood.”
“Yes, you’ll have Tony Spaulding to fight then,” said Arnold.
“Is he such a wonder?” asked Fanning.
“You saw him last year, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t think he was anything remarkable. He――”
“He scored six of their ten goals,” said Arnold. “That’s doing fairly
well, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I dare say, but Henry let a lot of shots get by him that never
ought to have been caged. Say, when’s Hen coming back? Lamson’s an
awful frost as a goal-tend.”
“About two weeks from now, he thinks,” replied Halliday. “He flunked in
German and got about a dozen conditions in other things.”
“Only a dozen?” asked Homer. “Well, if it takes him as long to make up
as it’s going to take me he will be back about June.”
“I wish he was back now,” said Fanning, gloomily. “Warren Hall won’t do
a thing to us to-morrow. Those chaps were born with hockey sticks in
their mouths, I guess.”
“Frank hasn’t made a bad showing,” said Arnold. “I don’t say he’s as
good as Henry, but I think he’s a pretty fair goal-tend.”
“Lamson couldn’t stop a medicine-ball if you rolled it at him,” jeered
Fanning. “Maybe he might if he’d stick around the net, but he thinks
he has to skate out and play point most of the time. Loring told him
yesterday that if he didn’t stay where he could touch the net all the
time he’d have him tied to it.”
“You’re prejudiced, I guess,” said Arnold warmly. “Other fellows think
Frank’s doing mighty well. I’ve heard lots of them say so, too. He
hasn’t had the experience that Henry’s had, of course, but he certainly
made some nice stops to-day.”
“All right, I don’t know anything about it,” agreed Fanning. “But I do
know that Warren Hall will shoot him so full of holes to-morrow that he
will look like a blooming sieve. Why, hang it, Arn, Toby Tucker here
can play goal better than Lamson right now! And Tucker never played
hockey until this winter!”
“Neither did Frank――much,” defended Arnold. “He played about a month on
the second last year――”
“He may get the hang of it,” interposed Ted Halliday, entering the
discussion, “but I think you’re dead wrong, Arn, when you say he can
play goal. To my mind he was never meant for a goal-tend. He’d make a
much better cover point, because he’s a good stick-handler and skates
well and is heavy enough to keep his feet when he’s checked. But
he’s dead slow at the net. If Henry doesn’t get back I’ll wager you
anything you like that Tucker plays goal against Broadwood.”
“Right!” agreed Fanning. Arnold shrugged his shoulders. Toby sat up
suddenly and almost choked on the cracker he was eating.
“Me!” he ejaculated.
“Surest thing you know,” asserted Fanning. “If Henry doesn’t work off
his conditions――”
“There’s only you and Lamson,” interrupted Halliday. “Unless they swipe
some fellow from the second, and I don’t know who he’d be. You’re a
heap better than Warren, aren’t you?”
“I――I suppose I’m a little better,” allowed Toby.
“Yes, and Warren’s a lot better than that new fellow, Guild. All you’ll
have to do is to beat out Lamson, and if you can’t do that I hope you
choke.” This was from Fanning. Arnold laughed.
“I’d be glad to see Toby get it,” he said, “but I don’t believe Lamson
is as bad as you fellows think he is. Anyway, Crowell is satisfied with
him.”
“Crowell doesn’t let you know whether he’s satisfied or dissatisfied,”
said Halliday. “Still, I don’t care who plays goal for us as long as
he stops Broadwood from scoring. That’s the main thing, I guess. I’ve
got to trot. Coming along, Fan? No more juice of the sun-kissed orange,
thanks, Homer. I’m full of it now. I’ll bet I’ve got enough different
kinds of chemicals inside me to stock a laboratory!”
“You have not!” denied Homer indignantly. “That’s pure fruit-juice
untouched by the human hand and passed by the board of censors.”
Halliday and Fanning took their departure, laughing, and Toby, so far a
very silent member of the party, broached the object of his visit.
“I wish you’d go over to Greenburg with me in the morning, Arn, and
help me buy some leg-guards and a pair of gloves. Will you?”
“Of course, if I can. What time?”
“Eleven? You don’t have anything then, do you?”
“Not on Saturday. All right. We won’t take Homer, though. He indulges
in too much levity on such solemn occasions.”
“Thanks, but Homer wouldn’t go if he was asked. Homer has given his
promise to expunge three conditions between now and the fifteenth day
of February, and what Homer promises, that he performs.” His expression
of implacable virtue was, however, somewhat marred by a cavernous yawn.
“Still, if you really need my advice, Toby――”
“No, thanks, I’m not buying neckties to-morrow.”
With which _bon-mot_ Toby closed the door behind him before Homer could
think of a suitable rejoinder.