DUD LOSES HIS TEMPER
“Winter,” observed Jimmy very disgustedly one morning toward the last
of February, “is sure ‘lingering in the lap of spring,’ as the poet
hath it. Between you and me, Dud, I guess winter’s fallen asleep there!
Here it is almost March and everything’s still covered up with snow or
ice. Or water,” he added a second later, his gaze falling to the pools
of melting snow that lay in the hollows of the campus.
The windows were wide open and the air that came in, while chill and
damp, still, somehow, held a suggestion――or perhaps a faint promise――of
spring. But the sky was leaden, between the walks the sod was hidden
under patches of dirty snow or ice that had begun to melt a little and
the whole morning world had a tired and bedraggled look. Jimmy, still
attired in pajamas, shivered and turned disapprovingly away. Then his
gaze fell on Dud and the disapproval increased, for Dud, half awake a
moment before, had nestled down on the rumpled pillow again and was
sleeping peacefully. Jimmy was righteously indignant.
“Wake up, you sluggard!” he bawled, pulling the clothes from the other.
“Here I’ve been talking to you for five minutes, saying perfectly
gorgeous things, and you haven’t heard a word! Get up, you lazy loafer,
and hear the birdies sing――or sneeze! Come out of there!”
Dud came out, rather in a heap, blinking confusedly, and strove to pull
the clothes from the bed to his shrinking form on the floor. But Jimmy
was merciless, and Dud was forced to arise grumblingly and rub his
sleepy eyes.
“Wh――what time is it?” he yawned.
“Never mind what time it is,” replied Jimmy severely. “It’s time you
were up and doing――――”
“‘With a heart for any fate,’” murmured Dud poetically if sleepily.
“What day is it?”
“Great Jumpin’ Jehosophat!” exclaimed Jimmy. “He doesn’t even know
the date! It’s a Tuesday, darling, and the month’s February, and the
year――――”
“Then it’s today practice begins,” said Dud. “I knew there was
something.” He arose and sought his bath robe. “I’ll bet it’s awfully
early. I don’t hear anyone up.”
“You hear me up,” responded his roommate. “As a matter of fact, I don’t
know just what time it is, because you forgot to wind the clock and my
watch has stopped and I couldn’t find yours. But it must be long after
six――――”
“Six!” grunted Dud in deep disgust. “What do you go pulling me out of
bed at six for? I’m going back again!”
“I said it was long after six. Where’s your watch? Have a look at it.”
Dud discovered that article at last dangling over the back of a chair,
it having escaped from a pocket, and in more mollified tones informed
Jimmy that it was twenty to seven. In the corridor a door opened and
slippered feet pattered toward the bathroom. Jimmy set his watch and
the clock, found his own robe and then, pausing at the door, asked
solicitously:
“How’s the old arm, Dud?”
“Sore,” was the answer. Dud bent it and flexed it――it was his right
one――and observed it scowlingly. “It’s lame all the way to the
shoulder. _Ouch!_ And the shoulder’s lame, too!”
“Too bad,” said Jimmy. “I was afraid you might overdo it, Dud.”
“Well, whose silly idea was it, anyway?” demanded Dud indignantly. “Who
suggested practicing every day, I’d just like to know?”
“I did, of course, but I didn’t tell you to do too much of it and lame
yourself, did I? What you’ve gone and done, Dud, is catch cold in it.
You ought to be mighty careful that way. You ought――――”
“Oh, dry up,” grumbled Dud. “You make me tired. If you know so pesky
much about it, why didn’t you say something before? I wouldn’t have
caught cold in it if you hadn’t insisted on slopping around in that
rink yesterday with the water up to your ankles! No wonder I caught
cold!”
“Well, you’ll have to lay off a few days, old chap. It’ll be all right
again, I guess.”
“That’s fine, isn’t it, when I’ve got to report for practice this
afternoon?”
“You won’t have to pitch, though,” responded Jimmy consolingly. “Just
do the setting-up stuff. Come on and get your bath.”
“I don’t want any bath,” muttered Dud, still feeling of his pitching
arm with cautious fingers. “You go ahead.”
“Dud,” said the other severely, “you’ve got a grouch. You must have got
out of bed the wrong way.”
“I did, when you pulled me out,” was the pointed reply. “And who
wouldn’t have a grouch, I’d like to know? I’ll have a fat chance to do
any pitching, won’t I?”
“You can tell ’em you lamed yourself, can’t you? Cheer up, Dud, and
come ahead before the crowd gathers. I’ll rub it for you when we get
back.”
“Huh! I guess that’s what’s the matter with it now. You nearly killed
me last night with your old massaging, as you called it.”
“It may hurt a little,” said Jimmy earnestly, “but it’s awfully good
for you. It’s regular Swedish stuff, Dud. I learned it from a chap at
home who works in the gym. We ought to have some liniment, though. I
wonder if that liquid dentifrice stuff of yours would do.”
“I’ll do my own rubbing, thanks,” replied the other ungraciously. “If
it hadn’t been for you――――”
“Help!” wailed Jimmy, hurrying through the door. Then came the sound
of quick scurrying in the corridor, and Dud, still mooning on the
side of the bed, guessed that Jimmy and some other chap were racing
for a bathtub. Dud hoped the other fellow would win. He continued to
explore the lamed muscles of his arm for several minutes, finding a
grim satisfaction in the twinges of pain he evoked. Finally, however,
he slung the cords of his bath-robe together and dejectedly followed
the others down the corridor. As luck would have it, three other youths
were awaiting their turns at the tubs, while Starling Meyer reached the
washroom at the same moment Dud did. Star fixed a haughty and scornful
glare on the younger boy.
“I’m ahead of you,” he announced briefly.
Most any other time Dud would have acquiesced without a murmur, but
this morning his peevishness made him combative and courageous. “Like
fun you are,” he replied scowlingly.
A perceptible thrill went through the other members of the waiting
group. Dud Baker and Star Meyer were going to have a scrap! They had
heard of Dud’s fighting reputation, and now they were to witness an
example of that youth’s quality! They almost held their breaths in the
excitement, their round eyes traveling from Star to Dud and back again
expectantly. Star frowned portentously.
“We’ll see,” he remarked coldly.
“You bet we’ll see,” agreed Dud, a strange recklessness taking
possession of him. Somehow this morning Star didn’t look nearly so
formidable, perhaps because his eyes were still heavy with sleep or
because the flaming red bath-robe in which he was enveloped was so
palpable an affront to good taste. Star stared an instant in perplexed
surprise and then deliberately turned his gaze away from Dud’s
pugnacious countenance, indicating contempt and scorn and several
other things that riled Dud still further. From the cubicles holding
the tubs came the rush and splash of water and the voices of the
bathers. No healthy boy ever bathed silently, and the four in the tubs
were, judging from the sounds, remarkably robust! Jimmy was chanting
a football pæan at the top of his lungs, another boy was singing
something remarkably tuneless and repetitional and the other two were
exchanging badinage across the partition at the tops of their voices.
After a moment one of the doors opened, a very pink-hued youth emerged
and it was the turn of one of the interested trio. Oddly enough
the latter showed a strange disinclination to avail himself of his
prerogative. Instead he offered in a whisper to let one of the others
precede him. But the reply was a shake of the head, the boy not even
removing his fascinated gaze from Dud.
There was nothing for it but to go then, and the youth went,
disappearing behind the door most reluctantly. Star moved impatiently
from one foot to the other. “You fellows in there, get a move on,” he
advised loudly. “We’ve been waiting here ten minutes.”
“Keep on waiting, old chap,” replied Jimmy, interrupting his song.
“Don’t know who you are, but you’re an awful fibber. I say, Dud, are
you there?”
“Yes,” growled Dud.
“Hand me a piece of soap from the stand, will you?”
Dud wanted to say no, but thought better of it and ungraciously crossed
the washroom and secured a cake of soap. “Catch,” he called.
“Stop it!” squealed Jimmy. “Don’t chuck! Here, pass it in.” The door
opened a bit and Jimmy’s face appeared in the slit. “Squeeze in,” he
whispered. “I’m through.”
Dud thrust the door open and entered, and Jimmy quickly bolted it
again. “Who’s out there?” he whispered. But before Dud could inform him
Star Meyer’s voice was raised in indignant protest.
“You can’t do that, Logan! It isn’t Baker’s turn. There are three of us
ahead of him. You come out of there, Baker!”
“I only took half a bath, Star,” replied Jimmy amiably. “I’m letting
Dud have the other half.”
“Yes, you are! No funny business now! Here, Benson, it’s your turn. Go
ahead in. They can’t do that.”
Benson, a slim, unaggressive youth, stared at Star in alarm. “I――I’m in
no hurry, thanks, Meyer. I――I’d just as lief wait, thanks.”
“Then you, whatever your name is, it’s your tub!”
The second boy shook his head and grinned. “I don’t like that one,” he
replied diplomatically. “The plug leaks. I’ll wait.”
Star scowled and looked doubtfully at the closed door. For some reason
intense quiet prevailed. Not a splash was heard. “Then if you fellows
won’t take it,” he said resolutely, “it’s my turn. That’s my tub,
Baker. You’d better come out of there.”
“I’ll be out when I’ve had my bath,” was the truculent reply, followed
by a sound very much like that caused by a hand descending approvingly
on a bare shoulder. Star strode across and rattled the door, but the
only response was the gurgling of water as the plug was withdrawn.
“I’ll report you to Mr. Gibbs,” announced Star loftily. “You’re
supposed to take your turn. You’d better let me in there.”
Just then the door opened and Jimmy came out. Star drew back a step and
Dud quickly shot the bolt again. Jimmy smiled sweetly and carelessly
at Star. “Don’t be a grouch, old man,” he said. “There’s lots of water
yet.”
Star fell back on his haughty attitude and observed Jimmy as from
Olympian heights. Jimmy chuckled. “Great stuff, Star,” he approved.
Then he nodded affably to the round-eyed Benson and took himself
gracefully from sight. At that moment another cubicle emptied itself of
its occupant and Star, swallowing his wrath, absent-mindedly entered
it, leaving the two waiting youths to scowl blankly at the closed
door. After a moment Benson ejaculated in a careful whisper: “_Hog!_”
The other boy nodded agreement. “I thought he and Baker were going to
scrap,” he confided sotto voce. “Gee, I wish they had. And I wish
Baker had done him up! He’s just a big bluff, that’s what he is!” From
the further cubicle came the sound of song. Dud was regaining his
temper.