ABSENT FROM CHAPEL
There was no opportunity to tell Arnold of the wonderful news until
the next morning after breakfast. Then he pulled his chum upstairs
to Number 12 and recounted the whole stupendous happening to him.
Arnold was delighted, but not as delighted as Toby thought he should
have been. And the reason appeared a minute later when Arnold said
doubtfully:
“I think myself you’ve got the making of a mighty good goal, T. Tucker,
only it seems to me you’ll need a good deal more practice than you
can get this year. I wouldn’t be too set up over what Loring says.
Of course he was right about your being a good one and all that, but
Loring is sort of――of visionary, I guess. I mean――”
“I don’t think he’s visionary at all,” replied Toby indignantly. “He
talks mighty practical horse-sense, Arn. How do you mean, visionary?”
“Well, he’s great for what he calls ‘tactical playing’: believes in
planning everything out beforehand and all that. Any one knows that
you can’t plan a hockey game, because you can’t tell beforehand what’s
going to develop. Frank says, too, that Loring wasn’t much of a player
when he was in college. He never made the varsity seven, anyway. He was
just substitute one year, or maybe two.”
“He was football captain, though,” defended Toby.
“I know that, but being football captain doesn’t make you a good hockey
coach, does it?”
“Maybe he was too busy to make the hockey team. If a fellow is captain
of the football team he wouldn’t have much time for other things, it
seems to me. And he was captain of his hockey team here at Yardley,
because he told me so.”
“Oh, well, they didn’t play hockey then as they do now. The game’s just
about twice as far advanced as it was then. I guess that’s the trouble
with Loring. He’s still trying to teach the old-style game. Frank
says――”
“What the dickens does Frank know about it?” asked Toby, a trifle
impatiently.
“Well, he knows more about it than you do, doesn’t he? Anyway, all I’m
trying to tell you is that Loring may have promised more than――than he
can deliver. When he tells you that by practicing hard and all that you
can make yourself a better goal-tend than Henry he’s stretching things
a bit. He wanted to say something nice, I guess. Or maybe he wanted to
make you work harder. Frank says Loring wasn’t asked up here to coach
the seven this year. He just came. He coached last year and we got
licked to a frazzle. Crowell wanted some one else, but there didn’t
seem to be any one, and Loring offered to come――”
“I think he’s a mighty good coach,” said Toby warmly, “no matter what
Frank Lamson or any other fellow says. And I don’t see that Frank is in
position to know more about it than I am, for that matter, Arn.”
“You won’t deny that he’s had more hockey experience, I suppose?”
“No, but――” Toby stopped. He had almost said that Frank’s experiences
hadn’t done him an awful lot of good. Instead; “But I don’t think that
having played last year makes a――a critic of him. Maybe it wasn’t Mr.
Loring’s fault that we lost to Broadwood last year. A coach can’t turn
out a winning team unless he has the material.”
“Our material was all right. It was just as good as this year’s, every
bit. Loring’s a back-number, that’s all. Frank was saying the other day
that if Crowell had got hold――”
“Oh, bother what Frank says!” interrupted Toby, peevishly. “You make me
tired, always quoting Frank Lamson, Arn. You’d think he was the only
fellow in school! He isn’t any better judge of Mr. Loring’s coaching
than you or me.”
Arnold flushed. “How long,” he asked, “since you sat yourself up as a
hockey authority?”
“I don’t. But I know as much hockey as Frank Lamson does right this
minute, even if he has played the game longer.”
“Yes, you do! You’re getting a swelled head, Toby, that’s the matter
with you. You think that just because Loring patted you on the head and
told you you were a great little goal-tend that you know it all. When
fellows who have played the game for years say that Loring’s no good as
a coach――”
“No one does say so but Lamson! And what he says is piffle. And you can
tell him I said so, if you like!”
“It wouldn’t bother him a bit,” answered Arnold angrily. “But if you
can’t speak decently of folks you’d better keep your mouth shut, Toby.
Frank’s a friend of mine, and a friend of yours, too, and――”
Toby laughed loudly. “A friend of mine, is he? That’s a good one!”
“He certainly is! Has he ever done anything that wasn’t friendly?”
“Has he ever done anything that was?”
“Lots!”
“Piffle!”
“Oh, all right. Have it your way, Mr. Smart Aleck! Frank――”
“You ask Frank Lamson if he was a friend of mine last Friday night,”
challenged Toby hotly. “If I had half a dozen friends like him I’d
be――be in the poor house!”
“What do you mean by that? What did Frank do? Go on and tell me now!
You’ve hinted. Out with it.”
But Toby, suddenly sobered, shook his head. “Never mind,” he muttered.
“Ask him if you want to know. I guess he wouldn’t tell, though.” He
laughed mirthlessly.
“That’s a cowardly trick,” said Arnold in disgust. “You make an
accusation against a fellow and then refuse to follow it up. Whether
Frank is a friend of yours or not, you certainly aren’t a friend to
him. And you aren’t a friend to me, either, when you talk like that. If
you weren’t a cad you’d come out and say what you mean.”
“Ask him,” said Toby doggedly.
“I will ask him!” blazed Arnold. “And if I was Frank I’d――I’d――”
“What?” demanded Toby. “Come back and steal my clothes this time, I
suppose! You tell him I’m putting my money in the bank now where he
can’t get it!”
“What! Look here, Toby Tucker, do you mean to tell me that you’re
accusing Frank of stealing that money of yours? Are you plumb crazy?”
“No, it’s you who are crazy! You think so much of Frank that you
believe anything he tells you. He couldn’t do anything wrong, according
to your idea. Well, ask him where he got the quarter with the
initials cut in it! And ask him where he got the dollar bill with the
court-plaster on it! He thinks, because I haven’t said anything, that
I don’t know. Well, I do know. I’ve got all the proof I need, and if I
told fellows what I know――”
“Look here, Toby!” cried Arnold sternly. “Cut that out!”
“Oh, of course! Anything that Lamson does――”
“Leave Frank alone! Look after your own――your own conduct! Accusing a
fellow like Frank of stealing! I never heard anything so rotten! Or so
silly, either! Cut it out, I tell you!”
“Sure! Maybe you’d like me to send him a pocket-book to keep it in? He
swiped my money and I’m not to speak of it for fear I might hurt his
feelings!” Toby laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one!”
Arnold strode to the door, with blazing eyes, and threw it wide open.
“Get out of here, Toby,” he demanded, “and stay out until you can talk
decently of my friends. You needn’t come back until you apologize. I
mean it!”
Toby’s heart sank for an instant, but a smarting sense of injury forced
a laugh and a sneer to his lips. “One excuse is as good as another to
get rid of me, Arn. I’ve known all along that you were――were tired of
me. Frank Lamson――”
“Let Frank alone! I’ve told you once! Get out or I’ll put you out!”
“Try it!” dared Toby. “I wish you would!” Then, as Arnold only stood
motionless with his hand on the door-knob, Toby shrugged his shoulders
and walked past him. On the threshold he paused for a final fling. “I’m
glad to go,” he said hotly. “I don’t care to stay where I’m not wanted.
But if you wait for me to apologize you’ll wait until your hair’s gray,
Arnold Deering. And, considering the way you love him and stand up for
him, I think the least Lamson can do is to divvy up with you on that
money he stole. Or perhaps he has already?”
The door, with Arnold’s weight against it, thrust Toby into the
corridor and closed with a crash. Toby laughed ironically and, his
head high and a disk of red in each cheek, climbed the stairs to the
hall above. In his room, he moved about for several minutes, picking
things up and laying them down again quite unconsciously. He whistled a
gay little tune until he suddenly found himself seated in a chair with
his hands in his trousers pockets, his legs sprawled out before him and
a horrible sinking feeling inside him. The whistle had stopped and he
was staring miserably at the tops of the bare trees outside the window.
He was sorry.
Being sorry is a most absorbing occupation. A fellow can spend heaps
of time being sorry and never realize it. And that’s just what Toby
did. How long he sat there, sprawled disconsolately in the chair,
alternately blaming himself for what had happened and then Arnold,
hating Frank with a new and perfectly soul-filling hatred, I don’t
know. But I do know that when a sense of the passage of time edged in
past the varied and warring emotions and he looked at the tin clock
on the bureau it was exactly eight minutes to nine and he had missed
chapel!
To miss chapel without a good and sufficient excuse was a bad piece of
business for a scholarship student, and the fact drove all thought
of Frank and Arnold and the quarrel from his mind. There was a bare
chance, one chance in ten, perhaps, that his absence wouldn’t be
discovered, but dare he risk it? At Yardley you were put on your
honor as regarded attendance at chapel. Should you stay away you were
expected to report the fact to the office and tender an explanation.
But, thought Toby, what explanation could he offer? Doctor Collins
would scarcely accept the true one as sufficient, and, if it came to
concocting a lie, why he might just as well say nothing and trust to
luck. Failure to report his absence would be no more dishonorable
than lying about! Toby studied the quandary troubledly for a good ten
minutes. Then he pulled his cap on, thrust his hands determinedly into
his pockets and made straight for the Office.
Chapel was over by the time he entered Oxford and the fellows were
streaming down the stairs. Toby turned to the right and strode
valiantly along the corridor and opened the door with the ground-glass
panel and the inscription in formidable black lettering: “Office of the
Principal.” The outer office was a big, strongly-lighted room with its
walls hidden by shelves and filing cabinets. A heavy carpet covered
the floor and at each end of the room a big broad-topped desk stood.
One of these was presided over by the school secretary. He glanced
up perfunctorily as Toby closed the door behind him and nodded to a
chair. Toby sat down and waited. From a further room marked “Private”
came the sound of low voices. The secretary’s pen scratched on and on
in the silence. The outer door opened again and a small boy with a
scared countenance entered, was challenged by the secretary’s glance
and settled down into the chair next to Toby, trying his best to assume
an appearance of nonchalance. Toby wondered if he too had cut chapel.
Presently the secretary plunged his pen into a bowl of shot and looked
toward Toby.
“Well, sir?”
“I want to see Doctor Collins, please.”
“Summons?”
“Sir?”
“Are you summoned?”
“No, sir, not yet. I mean――” Toby floundered. The ghost of a smile
crossed the secretary’s face.
“What do you wish to see him about, please?”
“I missed chapel this morning, sir, and――”
“Oh! What’s the name?”
“Tucker, Third Class.”
“Excuse?” The secretary had drawn a slip of paper to him and recovered
his pen.
“I――I forgot, sir,” answered Toby, lamely.
The secretary’s eye-brows arched. “That’s a novel excuse, Tucker,” he
said dryly. He pulled out a drawer at his right, ran his fingers over
the card index there and finally paused. “Tobias Tucker?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You hold a Ripley Scholarship, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
The secretary’s pen moved leisurely across the slip of paper.
“That’s the best excuse you can offer, is it?” he asked, without
looking up.
“I was――was upset by something,” answered Toby, struggling to make a
good case for himself of very poor material. “I didn’t know it was so
late, sir. When I found out what time it was it was eight minutes to
nine. I’m sorry.”
“Hm, being sorry is of so very little use, Tucker. Ever think of that?
After this, I’d advise you to do your being sorry beforehand. It saves
a lot of trouble sometimes. That’s all. You’ll hear from the Office in
due time.”
“I couldn’t see Doctor Collins, sir?” asked Toby wistfully.
“The Principal does not see students without appointments until after
two o’clock, Tucker. You can see him then if you like, but frankly I
don’t think it would do you any good. If he wants to see you he will
let you know.”
“Yes, sir.” Toby went out. After all, he told himself outside, scowling
challengingly at one of the plaster statues that loomed ghost-like
along the corridor, he had done what was honorable. He found a trifle
of consolation in that. Whatever was to be, was to be, and there was
nothing more he could do in the matter. His record until to-day had
been good and he didn’t believe that faculty would deprive him of
that scholarship for just missing one chapel. He was fairly cheerful
by the time he entered Whitson again and if luck hadn’t ordained that
he should almost collide with Arnold at the top of the first flight
he might have kept right on feeling cheerful for awhile longer. But
sight of Arnold brought back recollection of that other trouble. Arnold
drew aside, in stony silence, and Toby, after one startled glance,
stepped aside and passed. Homer Wilkins, behind Arnold, said: “Hello,
Toby! What’s the rush?” But Toby made no answer and went on up the
next flight, oppressed by a queer, empty sort of feeling. There was
nothing to do until nine-thirty, unless he chose to rub up his algebra
a little or press the trousers that Will Curran had left during his
absence. Toby didn’t feel like studying, though, and, after reading
the note that Curran had pinned to the garment, he only crumpled it up
and tossed it in the waste basket and laid the trousers down again. At
another time Curran’s facetious communication would have won a smile,
but to-day it seemed sadly dreary.
Curran had written:
“Tucker’s Cleansing and Pressing Parlors,
Dear Sir:
Please heat your little iron
And press these trousers nice.
I’ll call for them this evening
And bring the stated price.
Don’t crease them much above the knees,
For that’s against the style,
But press the cuffs down very flat,
So they will stay awhile.
William Shakespeare Curran.”
Awful rot, Toby thought.