29 LOTHROP
True to his promise――or threat, if you think with Dud――Jimmy haled his
protesting friend from room to room in the evenings, made him join
the throngs on the ice or the toboggan slide in the afternoons and on
all occasions dragged him into the conversations and, to use his own
expression, “got him in the spot-light.” It can’t be truthfully said
that his efforts met with overwhelming success, however. Dud didn’t
shine as a conversationalist or display any traits calculated to win
popularity. No one disliked him in the least. Most of the time few were
really conscious of his presence, in spite of Jimmy’s untiring efforts.
Personally, as has been suggested, Dud didn’t take kindly to being
exhibited and exploited, and when a fortnight or so after the inception
of the undertaking Jimmy actually got to telling jokes and crediting
them to Dud, the latter was supremely uncomfortable. Jimmy would
chuckle and say: “Dud got off a good one the other day, fellows.” And
then he would follow with some more or less brilliant remark or joke
that sounded to Dud horribly flat. Generally the hearers laughed and
shot surprised glances at the silent and embarrassed Dud, but he didn’t
win recognition as a wit or a sage for all of that. Had they heard the
things from Dud first-hand they might have been more impressed. As it
was the credit went rather to Jimmy than Dud.
Jimmy played Boswell to Dud’s Doctor Johnson with remarkable enthusiasm
and patience. He evolved all sorts of schemes, most of which his chum
promptly refused to consider, designed to waft Dud into the white light
of publicity. For instance, he conceived the brilliant idea of having
Dud write a notable article for _The Campus_, the school monthly. Dud
had no serious objection to that project, but it fell through because
neither of them could think of a subject to write on. Then Jimmy
suggested that Dud get someone to break through the ice on the river
so Dud could rescue him. Jimmy said he would be glad to impersonate
the drowning character if he wasn’t afraid of catching cold and having
rheumatism in his throwing arm. It was all highly entertaining for
Jimmy and he thoroughly enjoyed it, but Dud was getting very tired
of it. Every now and then Jimmy had what he called a “show down.” At
such times he would take a list from his drawer in the study table and
check off the names of fellows whose acquaintance Dud had succeeded in
making since the last time.
“Churchill, we got him. Check for Churchill. He was a brand new one,
wasn’t he? Roy Dresser, check. Dresser was rather a success, Dud. I
think he rather took to you. We must call there again. I’ll make a note
of that. Dresser’s room is a good place to meet fellows. Parker, check.
Parker’s an ass, anyway. Ayer――I say, Dud, we haven’t met Neil Ayer
yet. Do you know him at all?”
“Only to speak to.”
“We’ll go after Ayer this evening, then. I know where to find him. He
will be in Joe Leslie’s room, I guess. Foster Tray, check. Tray’s a
good sort. Zanetti――that’s another chap we’ve missed. We’ll have to
find him with Nate Leddy some time. I don’t know him at all. He’s a
good fellow to know, though. Stands in with the football and the track
crowds. I tell you what, Dud! Why not go out for the Track Team?”
“Because I can’t do anything,” laughed Dud.
“How do you know you can’t?” asked Jimmy, untroubled. “Besides,
you wouldn’t have to really _do_ anything. You could have a try at
something and you’d meet a lot of fellows. Jumping isn’t awfully hard.
Why not try the broad jump?”
“I couldn’t do that and pitch too, you idiot.”
“That’s so. I forgot. Still, some fellows do go in for baseball and
track. There’s Cherry, for instance. Well, never mind. Maybe we’d
better――er――concentrate.” Jimmy sat back and studied Dud speculatively,
tapping his pen against his teeth the while. “What we’ve got to do,
Dud,” he continued presently, in the tones of one who has reached a
weighty conclusion after much thought, “is to put it all over those
other box artists. That’s our line, Dud. We’ve got to spring you as a
startling phenom! Yes, sir, that’s the game!”
“That’s all well enough, Jimmy, but suppose I can’t pitch a little bit
when the time comes?”
“By Ginger, you’ve got to! Look here, you’re wasting time. You ought
to be at it every day. You ought to get down in the cage in the gym
and practice. What time is it now? Nearly six, eh? Too late today,
then. But tomorrow we’ll put in a half-hour, and the next day, too, and
right along until they call candidates. I’ll catch you. I’ll borrow a
mitt somewhere. It’ll be good fun, too. Practice for both of us. Great
scheme, eh?”
“Do you mind?” asked Dud eagerly.
“Love to! We’ve got a week yet and you ought to be able to get a lot
of practice in a week. That’s settled, then. But we mustn’t forget
the――er――the social side of the campaign. So let’s see.” Jimmy
bent over his list again. “Quinn, check. Milford――had him before.
Forbes――――”
The second visit to Hugh Ordway’s study came off right on schedule,
nine days after the first call, but on this occasion Dud and Jimmy
found the room jammed from door to windows with fellows and a loud
and even violent argument going on. Their appearance went practically
unnoticed and they found seats with some difficulty and became for a
while silent listeners. The argument proved to be concerned with the
election the evening before of one Starling Meyer as captain of the
Hockey Team. The hockey team had just finished a disastrous season,
ending with a second defeat by Grafton’s ancient rival, Mount Morris.
Lack of hard ice had aided in the team’s demoralization, but besides
that things had gone badly from start to finish, and there were many
who credited the afore-mentioned Meyer with having been largely to
blame. “Pop” Driver, who played right guard on the eleven and was
normally good-natured to a fault, expressed the views of the anti-Meyer
faction.
“Meyer,” Pop was saying, “has caused more trouble all the winter than
he’s worth. Everything that Yetter’s wanted to do one way, Star’s
insisted on doing another. You fellows know that, all of you. Look at
the way they changed the style of play in the middle of the season.
Yetter started out playing four men on defense and it worked all right.
Then Star got to saying that we weren’t scoring enough points and
that the four-men-back business was all wrong. He grouched and sulked
about it until Yetter gave in to him. After that we got licked right
along, with one or two exceptions, and finally Yetter went back to the
old style again, and Star threatened to quit and there was the dickens
to pay for awhile. Star’s simply no use unless he can be the whole
shooting-match.”
“Well, they’ve made him captain,” said Jim Quinn, football manager, “so
now he can show what he knows.”
“There’s no sense in blaming everything on Star Meyer,” declared Ned
Musgrave. “Yetter’s a good chap, but he hadn’t any business being
captain. There’s where the whole trouble began. If Yetter――――”
“Warren would have been all right,” said Bert Winslow, “if Star had
let him alone. But Star hates to see anyone else have any say about
anything. He’s a peach of a hockey player, I’ll grant you that, but
he’s a peach of a trouble-maker, too. And I’ll bet you anything things
will be in a worse mess next year than they were this.”
“Why didn’t they elect Gus Weston?” asked Roy Dresser. “Gus would have
made a dandy leader.”
“Because Star pulled all the strings he could,” answered Pop, “and
scared the fellows into voting for him.”
“I happen to know, Pop,” interposed Musgrave warmly, “that more than
three-fourths of the team wanted Star for captain long before election.
You might as well be fair to him, Pop. Give him a show. Don’t convict a
fellow before he’s tried, I say!”
“All right, Ned,” answered Pop good-naturedly. “We’ll let him have his
trial. Maybe you’re right, too. Star may make a better captain than he
did a first lieutenant. Let’s hope so. I won’t be here to see, though.”
“What makes you think so?” inquired Nick Blake maliciously, raising a
laugh at Driver’s expense. Pop, as he himself put it, was doing the
four-year course in five, and there was always some doubt as to his
getting through in five. Pop grinned now and shook his head.
“They’ll give me my diploma to get rid of me, Nick,” he said.
Jimmy, who had remained quiescent until now, took advantage of a
momentary lull in the discussion and chuckled. Pop, beside him, turned
inquiringly. “What’s on your mind, Jimmy?” he inquired.
“I was just thinking of something Dud got off awhile ago,” replied
Jimmy, still visibly amused. Dud threw an entreating look at him, but
Jimmy pretended not to see it.
“Dud who?” asked Pop.
“Dud Baker, over here.” Jimmy’s glance indicated his friend. “We
were talking about the hockey team losing so many games one day and
Dud said he guessed the trouble with them”――Jimmy had managed to
gain the attention of the room by now――“was that they were weak from
Star-vation!”
Dud looked anything but like the author of the bonmot at that moment,
but the audience laughed, even Ned Musgrave, and Jimmy credited himself
with a bull’s-eye.
“The pun,” observed Nick Blake gravely, “is considered the lowest form
of humor.”
“I think that’s mighty clever,” exclaimed Hugh. “You’re hipped because
you didn’t think of it yourself, Nick.”
“Dry up, ’Ighness! I was about to say when you so rudely interrupted
that it is, of course, necessary to consider one’s audience, and that,
having the mentality of the audience in mind, Baker’s joke may be
considered clever, even brilliant. For my part――――”
“Choke him, somebody,” said Bert. “After all, say what you like about
Star, you’ve got to acknowledge that there’s much to ad-Meyer about――――”
But Nick’s groan of anguish drowned the rest, and Dresser, pretending
disgust, arose to depart, setting the example for several others.
Jimmy, fearing that Dud’s gloomy silence might undo the effect created
by the joke, thought the moment a good one for retiring and led his
chum away. Outside, Dud remonstrated again.
“I wish you wouldn’t, Jimmy,” he said. “I feel such an awful fool when
you spring those jokes and tell fellows I made ’em. They must know I
didn’t!”
“Why? You do say things as good as that, don’t you? When there’s no one
but me around, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t think that was awfully funny, anyway,
Jimmy.”
Jimmy chuckled. “I do. And the others did. Cheer up, Dud. I’ll make a
celebrity of you in spite of yourself!”
Later, back in Number 29 Lothrop, Bert Winslow laughed suddenly while
he was getting ready for bed and Hugh, hearing, called across from his
own bedroom.
“What’s the joke, Bert?”
“I was thinking of the one Jimmy Logan sprung; about the hockey team
being weak from Star-vation. It isn’t so bad, eh?”
“Rather clever, but it was that chap Baker who said it, wasn’t it?”
“I guess so. But look here,” continued Bert, appearing in his doorway
in the course of a struggle with his collar, “why is it Baker never
gets off any of those things himself? It’s always Jimmy Logan who
springs ’em. All Baker does is to sit and look glum. If he’s so
all-fired clever why doesn’t he say something once in a while? I think
he’s a bit of a pill.”
“He’s not so bad, I fancy,” replied Hugh. “Maybe you have to know him.
Some chaps are like that, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, but――――” Bert’s voice died out until he had at last wrenched the
refractory collar from his neck. Then: “Here’s another funny thing,
Hugh,” he said. “Jimmy lugs that fellow around every place with him;
sort of butts in with him everywhere. You’d think Jimmy was a――a
nurse-maid or something. Looks to me as if he was trying to introduce
his young friend into Society. I wouldn’t care a bit if he forgot to
bring him up here the next time.”
“What have you got against him?” inquired Hugh.
“Nothing much. He’s only a lower middler, though, and lower middlers
ought to keep to their own set. Besides, look at the cheek of the kid!
Going to try for pitcher on the first! What do you know about that?”
“But if he’s really any good at it,” began the other.
“How could he be? He can’t be more than fifteen, I guess.”
“You were young once yourself, old chap.”
“Yes, but I didn’t try to pitch on the first team,” grumbled Bert.
“He’s too fresh.”
“I’ll tell you just what’s the matter with him,” said Hugh, appearing
in the study in a suit of pink-striped pajamas. “He’s shy, Bert.”
“Shy! And going out for the first nine!”
“I know it doesn’t look so,” laughed Hugh, “but that’s just what his
trouble is, and I rather fancy that Logan, out of pure kindness, is
trying to bring him out, if you know what――――”
“Pure kindness!” scoffed Bert. “Jimmy’s kind enough, I guess, but if
that’s his game you can bet all you’ve got that he’s doing it for a
lark. I know Jimmy!”