PAGING MR. BLASHINGTON
There were two more pennies awaiting him on the letter rack, each
enclosed in a business envelope. One envelope bore the inscription,
“After Five Days Return to The Warne Gas and Electric Company, Warne,
Mass.,” and the other purported to have come from the “Stevens Machine
Company.” But the handwriting was suspiciously the same on each
envelope. Upstairs, Dick handed the two to Stanley and told about
receiving the previous three pennies. For a moment Stanley seemed as
puzzled as Dick. Then, however, a smile spread itself slowly over his
face and he chuckled.
“Anybody owe you any money?” he asked.
“Not that I know----” began Dick. Then comprehension dawned. “By Jove!
You mean Blashington?”
“Of course. It’s just the crazy sort of thing he’d do. He owed you
twelve and a half cents, didn’t he? Well, he’s paying his debt. But
where he manages to get hold of all these bum pennies is beyond me.
There isn’t one of the five, Dick, that you could pass on anyone but a
blind man!”
“Well, it’s putting him to a lot of trouble, I’ll bet,” said Dick
grimly. “If he can stand it I can. Funny, though, I didn’t think of
him. I thought yesterday it was Rusty Crozier. That’s why I showed them
to you last night. Crazy ape!”
“Hand me a scrap of paper and a pencil, Dick. Anything will do.
Thanks.” Stanley wrote a few lines, folded the paper many times and
handed it back. “Just for fun, Dick, when Blash has made his last
payment, you read what I’ve written there,” he directed.
“Gee, you’re as bad as he is for silly jokes,” grumbled Dick. But he
opened the drawer in his desk and dropped the paper inside. “And that
reminds me that I ran across another crazy idiot this afternoon. His
name’s Halden. He wanted to punch me because I called him down for
balling up a play in signal drill. Know him?”
“Sanford Halden?” Stanley nodded. “Know who he is, yes. He’s a sort of
a nut. Goes in for everything and never lands. Used to think he was a
pole-vaulter. Then he tried the sprints and--well, I guess he’s had
a go at about everything. The only thing I ever heard of his doing
half-way well is basket-ball. I believe he’s fairly good at that.
Usually gets fired, though, for scrapping. They call him Sandy. He’s a
Fourth Class fellow.”
“Is he? I thought he was probably Third. He must be older than he looks
then.”
“I guess he’s only seventeen,” said Stanley. “He’s smart at studies.
He’s one of the kind who always knows what he’s going to be asked and
always has the answer. It’s a gift, Dick.” And Stanley sighed.
“He’s going to have another gift,” laughed Dick, “if he gets fresh with
me! Talk about your stupids! He was the limit today. Had hold up the
whole squad while he was being taught the simplest play there is. Then
he had the cheek to threaten to punch my nose! I hope they let me run a
squad tomorrow and put him on it!”
“Calm yourself, Dickie. Halden’s a joke. Don’t let him bother you.
Let’s go to supper. Don’t forget this is movie night.”
Going to the movies was a regular Saturday night event at Parkinson and
usually a good half of the school was to be found at one or the other
of the two small theatres in the village. Tonight, perhaps because of
the heat, the stream that trickled across the campus to the head of
School Street as soon as supper was finished was smaller than usual,
and Dick and Stanley, Blash and his room-mate, Sid Crocker, commented
on the fact as they started off.
“The trouble is,” hazarded Sid, “they don’t have the right sort of
pictures. Gee, they haven’t shown Bill Hart since ’way last winter!”
“How do you know! They may have had a Hart picture while we’ve been
away. What I kick about is this educational stuff. I suppose it doesn’t
cost them much, but I’m dead tired of Niagara Falls from an airplane
and gathering rubber in Brazil--or wherever they do gather it--and all
that trash.” Blash shook his head disgustedly. “Hope they’ll have a
real, corking-good serial this year. Nothing like a good serial to keep
a fellow young and zippy.”
“They give us too much society drool,” said Stanley. “Pictures about
Lord Blitherington losing the old castle and his string of hunters and
going to America and stumbling on a gold mine and going home again and
swatting the villain and rescuing the heroine just as she’s going to
marry the old guy with the mutton-chop whiskers. I wish they’d let her
marry him sometimes. Guess it would serve her right!”
“Well, they’ve got a pretty good bill at the Temple tonight,” said
Dick. “That Western picture looks great.”
“Yes, but who’s this guy that’s in it?” demanded Sid suspiciously. “Who
ever heard of him before?”
“Everyone but you, you old grouch,” Blash assured him sweetly. “Come on
or we’ll have to stand up until the first picture’s over.”
Adams Street was quite a busy scene on a Saturday night, for the stores
kept open and the residents of a half-dozen neighbouring hamlets came
in to do the week’s buying. While they were making their way through
the leisurely throng Sid had a fleeting vision of Rusty Crozier, or
thought he had. Stanley said it was quite likely, as Rusty was a
great movie “fan.” Then they were part of the jam in the entrance
of the Scenic Temple, and Blash, because of superior height, had
been commissioned to fight his way to the ticket window. Followed
a scurry down a darkened aisle and the eventual discovery of three
seats together and one in the row behind. Blash volunteered for the
single one and since it was directly behind the seat occupied by Dick
the latter subsequently shared with Stanley the benefit of Blash’s
observations and criticisms. A news weekly was on the screen when they
arrived, and Blash had little to say of the pictured events, but
when Episode 17 of “The Face in the Moonlight” began he became most
voluble. Stanley kept telling him to shut up, but Dick, who didn’t find
the serial very enthralling, rather enjoyed Blash’s absurdities. A
comedy followed and then came a Western melodrama with a hero who took
remarkable chances on horseback and a heroine who had a perfect passion
for getting into trouble. There were numerous picturesque cow-boys
and Mexicans and a villain who, so Blash declared delightedly, was
the “dead spit” of Mr. Hale, the instructor in physics. Just when the
picture was at its most absorbing stage the piano ceased abruptly and
after an instant of startling silence a voice was heard.
“Is Mr. Wallace Blashington in the house? Mr. Wallace Blashington is
wanted at the telephone!”
The piano began again and the usher, a dimly seen figure down front,
retreated up the aisle like a shadow. The three boys in front turned to
Blash excitedly.
“What is it, Blash?” asked Sid.
“Better go see,” counselled Stanley.
“Are you sure he said me?” whispered Blash. He sounded rather nervous.
“Of course he did! Beat it, you idiot! Come back if you can. Ask the
man next you to hold your seat, Blash.”
“We-ell--but I don’t see----” muttered Blash. Then he got up, dropped
his cap, groped for it and found it and pushed his way past a long
line of feet, stepping on most of them. At the back of the theatre an
usher conducted him to the ticket booth and he picked up the telephone
receiver.
“Hello!” he said. “Hello! This is Blashington!”
“Hello! Is that you, Mr. Blashington?” asked a faint voice from what
seemed hundreds of miles away.
“Yes. Who is talking?”
“Mr. Wallace Blashington?”
“Yes! Who----”
“Of Parkinson School?”
“Yes! What--who----”
“Hold the line, please. Baltimore is calling.”
Then followed silence. Blash wondered. He tried to think of someone
he knew in Baltimore, but couldn’t. He felt decidedly nervous without
any good reason that he knew of. Through the glass window he saw
the doorman watching him interestedly. Beside him the girl who sold
tickets pretended deep absorption in a magazine and chewed her gum
rhythmically, but Blash knew that she was finding the suspense almost
as trying as he was. After what seemed to him many minutes a voice came
to him. It might have been a new voice, but it sounded to Blash much
like that of the first speaker.
“That you, Wallace!”
“Yes! Who are you?”
“This is Uncle John.”
“_Who?_”
“Uncle John, in Baltimore.”
“Unc--Say, you’ve got the wrong party, I guess! Who do you want?”
“Isn’t this Wallace?”
“This is Wallace Blashington!” Blash was getting peevish. “I haven’t
any Uncle John in Baltimore or anywhere else!” The ticket girl
sniggered and Blash felt his face getting red. “I say I haven’t----”
“Yes, Wallace? I can’t hear you very well. I’ve just had word from
Dick, Wallace, and----”
“Dick who? I say Dick _who_!” roared Blash.
“Yes, Wallace, I’m sure you do. Well, this is what he says. I’ll read
it to you. ‘Tell Blash----’ He calls you Blash. ‘Tell Blash he needn’t
bother----’”
“Needn’t _what_?”
“Needn’t bother! ‘Tell Blash he needn’t bother to send the other----’
Are you there, Wallace? Did you get that?”
“Yes! But who is talking? What is--Look here, I don’t understand----”
“Yes, Wallace, I’ll speak more distinctly.--‘Not to bother to send the
other seven and a half cents!’”
“What cents? Say, look here! Who is Dick? Dick who? What----”
“Dick Bates,” answered the ghostly voice.
Blash stared for an instant at the instrument. Then he said:
“You--you----” in an oddly choked voice, banged the receiver back on
the hook and bolted through the door. He was aware that the ticket girl
was giggling and that the doorman eyed him amusedly as he hurried into
the theatre again and he wondered if they were parties to the hoax. In
the darkness at the back of the house he paused and fanned himself with
his cap, and as he did so he chuckled.
“Not bad,” he whispered to himself. “Not a-tall bad!”
Then he made his way down the aisle, located his seat after much
difficulty and crawled back to it over many legs and feet. Three
concerned faces turned sympathetically.
“No bad news, I hope?” said Stanley in an anxious whisper.
“Anything important?” asked Sid.
Dick looked but said nothing, and Blash, his lips close to Dick’s ear,
hissed threateningly: “One word from you, Bates! _Just one word!_”
Instead of speaking, however, Dick turned his face to the screen again,
his shoulders shaking. Further along, where Sid sat, there was a faint
choking sound. Then Stanley said: “_Oh, boy!_” and fell up against
Dick. Again that queer choking sound, then a gurgle, followed by a
muffled explosion of laughter from Dick, and Stanley was on his feet,
pushing Sid ahead of him, and Dick was following weakly on his heels,
and a second after all three were plunging wildly up the darkened aisle.
“Ex-excuse me,” muttered Blash. He clutched his cap and wormed his
way past a dozen exasperated, protesting members of the audience and
pursued his friends. He found them in the lobby outside. Stanley was
leaning against the side of the entrance, Sid was draped over a large
brass rail, and Dick, midway, was regarding them from streaming eyes,
one hand stretched vainly forth for support. The contagion of their
laughter had involved doorman and ticket girl, while a small group of
loiterers beyond were grinning sympathetically. On this scene appeared
Blash. Stanley saw him first and raised one arm and pointed in warning.
Dick looked, gave forth a final gasp of laughter and fled on wobbling
legs. Sid and Stanley followed and Blash brought up the rear.
Down Adams Street in the direction of the railroad station went hares
and hound, the hound gaining at every stride. Dick took to the street
early in the race, the sidewalk being much too congested for easy
progress, and had hair-breadth escapes from cars and vehicles. To him
the station came into sight like a haven of refuge, and there he was
run to earth in a dim corner of the waiting-room. When Stanley and Sid
reached the scene, outdistanced by Blash, Dick was lying on a bench and
Blash was sitting on him in triumph.
“Apologise!” panted Blash. “Say you’re sorry!”
“I--I----” gurgled Dick.
“Say it, you lobster!”
“’Pologise!” grunted the under dog. “Sorry I--Oh, gee!” And, Blash
arising from his prostrate form, Dick went off again into a paroxysm of
laughter, while Stanley and Sid sank weakly onto the bench and wiped
their eyes.
“Who did you get to do it?” asked Blash a few minutes later when they
were making their way back to school. “Who was on the ’phone?”
“Rusty Crozier,” chuckled Dick.
“Rusty! And I didn’t recognise his voice! I guess, though, he put a
pebble under his tongue or something.” Blash laughed. “Say, fellows,
I’d have sworn he was a thousand miles away!”
“He--he stood away from the ’phone,” Dick explained.
“Oh!” Blash was silent a moment. Then: “I suppose you two silly pups
were in on it,” he accused.
“I was,” acknowledged Stanley. “Dick and I hatched it up at supper. Sid
didn’t know until you’d gone out to the telephone. Rusty went to the
theatre first and found out what time the big picture was coming on. We
passed him on Adams Street and I was afraid you’d see him and suspect
something. But I guess you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t see him. Where did he telephone from, Stan?”
“The hotel, right across the street. He said he could watch you from
there while he talked!”
“Wait till I get hold of him!” said Blash. Then he laughed again.
“Well, it was pretty cute, fellows. The joke was on me that time!”