CHAPTER X
A COIL OF WIRE
"Bonfires to-night, fellows--bonfires multiplied by seven and one more!"cried Captain Woodhouse as he gathered the victorious nine about him andtried to hug each member. "Well played, my hearties! Yo ho! and a heave,yo ho! You shall dine sumptuously this day, an it please ye!"
"Hold hard there!" came the laughing but calming voice of the coach. "Nobreaking of training just because you've won the first game. Not much!You've got to buckle down harder than ever from now until schoolcloses."
"Not even a cigarette?" asked Holly Cross, with a wink at his chums.
"Or an ice cream soda?" added Bricktop, his blue eyes twinkling.
"Go on," answered the coach with another laugh, not taking the troubleto return an answer to so obvious a question. "They are going to cheeryou. Get ready to give them a yell in return."
The defeated team had gathered together. There was an air of sullennessabout the members at losing the game, but this mood quickly passed underthe entreaties of Pinky Davenport, who was a sportsman and "a goodloser," as he besought his men to "perk up and wallop 'em next time." Hecalled for three cheers for the victors, and they were followed by theBoxer Hall yell.
Back came three ringing acclamations and a "tiger" from Woodhouse andhis mates, and their yell, as weird a combination of words and syllablesas could well be devised, brought the whole concourse of spectatorsstanding up in acknowledgment. Then came more cheering, and the ninesdisappeared into the dressing-rooms beneath the grandstand, while thecrowds filed away.
"Well," remarked Sid as he walked along with Tom a little later, "it wasa glorious victory, as the poem says. I don't exactly remember what itwas all about nor how we did it, but ''twas a glorious victory.'"
"Now you're talking," was Phil Clinton's opinion. "Eh, Tommy, my lad?"
Tom was rather silent. He had cheered the nine until his throat ached,but somehow there was to him a hollowness in the winning.
"Too bad you couldn't play, old man," commented Sid. "I was almosthoping Langridge would strain his arm, and then----"
"Don't!" exclaimed Tom quickly. "That's bad luck, and, what's worse,Sid, it's treason."
"Then give me liberty or buy me a seltzer lemonade, Patrick Henry!"declaimed Phil. "Honest now, Tom, weren't you just aching to get out andplay?"
"I was," replied Tom so earnestly that the others looked curiously athim. "I never wanted so much in my life to get into a game. Why, I'deven been glad to act as backstop. But it's all right," he addedquickly. "It was a great game, and maybe I'll have a chance to play nextyear if I live that long," and he laughed, but there was no mirth in it.
"Mighty pretty lot of girls at the game," observed Sid, as if to changethe subject.
"That's what," agreed Tom, glad to get on a more congenial topic.
"Oh, wait until we play Fairview Institute," said Phil.
"Why?" from Tom.
"Why, that's co-ed, you know--girl students as well as boys. And, say,maybe there aren't some stunners among 'em! They take in all the gamesat home and some that aren't, and they have flags and a yell of theirown. They know how to yell, too. I was over to a ball game there lastyear, before I thought of coming to Randall, and say, it was immense.There was one----"
"Cut it out, if it's about a girl," advised Sid. "When you get on thedame question, you don't know where to stop. Sufficient to say thatthere are some."
"Yes, and then some more," added Phil. "Wait until we go there or theycome here. Then you'll see something worth seeing."
"May the day come soon," spoke Tom with a laugh. "I sat next to a mightypretty girl to-day all right. She had a flag of Randall colors, and whenwe won she waved it so hard she nearly put my eye out."
"Of course you made a fuss," said Phil with a grin.
"Of course. I turned to apologize and so did she, and I knocked her hatall squeegee and she blushed and I got red, and then--well, I up andasked her if she had a brother at college."
"That's going some," commented Sid. "What did she say? Did you learn hername? Where does she live?"
"Fair and softly, little one," advised Tom, with a sort of assumedsuperciliousness. "Trust your Uncle Dudley for that."
He walked on a few paces.
"Well?" demanded Phil.
"Is that all?" cried Sid.
"No," said Tom, provokingly mysterious about it.
"Go on. Tell a fellow, do."
"What's the use?" asked Tom. "I saw her walking off after the game withanother fellow."
"Who?" demanded his two chums.
"Langridge."
"With him?" exclaimed Sid, and there was a new meaning in his tones."Who was the girl?"
"Her name was Madge Tyler," replied Tom slowly.
"Madge Tyler!" repeated Sid. "Why, her brother used to go here. Hegraduated two years ago. He was a crackajack first baseman. And so MadgeTyler is going with Langridge?" he questioned.
"Or he with her," said Tom dryly. "I don't see that it makes muchdifference. Why, hasn't he got a right to?"
"Oh, I s'pose if you put it that way, he has," went on Sid. "Only----"and he stopped abruptly.
"Only what?" asked Tom.
"Only--nothing. Say, here's a chance to buy me that seltzer lemonade. Ithink you ought to stand treat for Phil and me, Tom, seeing that if ithadn't been for us the game would have been lost and you wouldn't havemet Miss Madge."
"I don't know that it has benefited me much," replied Tom.
"What do you mean, you old cart horse?" asked Phil, thumping his friendon the back. "Seeing the game won or meeting the pretty girl? I believeyou said she was pretty."
"I didn't say so, but she is--very. But I meant about meeting her.Langridge seems to have a mortgage in that direction, I fancy."
"He makes me sick!" exclaimed Phil. "He and the airs he gives himself.But come on in here," and he turned toward a drug store. "I'm like alime kiln, I'm so warm. It's your treat, Tom."
"All right, I'm willing."
"Did Miss Madge ask you to call?" inquired Phil as the three werewending their way toward college again.
"Yes."
"You don't say so! Well, it seems to me that for a new acquaintance yourushed matters fairly well."
"I forgot to add," said Tom slowly, "that I knew her before--back inNorthville where I live. She moved away from there some years ago and Ididn't recognize her at first. But she knew me at once."
"Wow! You old coffee percolator!" shouted Sid. "Why didn't you dish thatout to us first, instead of letting us think you made an impressionsimply by the aid of your manly figure? So you knew her of old. Ha! ha!Likewise ho! ho! I begin to smell a concealed rodent in the woodpile."
"You didn't give me a chance," was Tom's quiet answer, and then he fellto talking about the game until he and Sid got to their room. Laterthere were bonfires and fun galore in honor of the victory.
Coach Lighton gave the nine no rest. Early the next Monday afternoon, assoon as lessons were over, he had them out on the diamond playingagainst the scrub. Somewhat to the surprise of members of the secondteam as well as that of the 'varsity, Tom Parsons struck out an unusualnumber of players.
"You fellows will have to bat better than this," growled Langridge whenpractice was over and the 'varsity game had been saved merely by afumble on the part of a scrub fielder. "This won't do."
"Physician, heal thyself," quoted Captain Woodhouse with a grim smile."You struck out twice, Langridge."
"I know it, but batting isn't my best specialty and it is for some ofyou fellows."
"True enough," admitted Kindlings gravely, "and we must brace up a bitfor the game next Saturday with Fairview."
"The captain is right, boys," added the coach. "You must do some hardhitting."
"Or else Tom Parsons mustn't pitch so well," said Phil Clinton in a lowvoice to Sid. "How about it?"
"That's right. He's improving wonderfully. Langridge will have to lookto his pitching arm."
At that moment the wealthy y
outh passed by Phil and Sid. He heard whatthey said, and if they could have seen his face then they would havebeen somewhat puzzled at the look on it. But neither Tom nor any of hisfriends saw.
It was the next day after the scrub game that as Tom was alone in hisroom, "boning" away on Latin, a knock sounded on the door.
"Come!" he cried, and, much to his surprise, Langridge entered.
"You're becoming a regular greasy dig, aren't you?" he asked pleasantly.
"Well, I've got to do some studying, you know. That's what I came herefor."
"Yes, I know and all that sort of thing, but if you're going in forathletics you can't pound away at your books too hard."
"Oh, I guess what pounding I do won't hurt me," and Tom laid aside thevolume, the while wondering why Langridge had called on him. Tomdistinctly was not in the rich youth's set.
"I hope not," and the other's manner was becoming more and more cordial."But I say, Parsons, don't you want to help us get one in on the sophs?"
"Sure. You can always count on me. What is it this time?"
"Well, you know the little open pavilion down near the river?"
"The one near the boathouse?"
"That same."
"Sure I know it."
"Well, you know according to ancient and revered college tradition thatis sacred to the sophomores. None other but members of the second-yearclass may go there. If one of us freshmen is caught there it means aducking, to say the least."
"So I've heard."
"Well, Kerr and I were in there the other day, for we heard that thesophs were off on a little racket, and we didn't think we'd be disturbed.We had a couple of girls there and were having a little confab when alongcame Gladdus and Battersby, grabbed us before we knew it and chucked usinto the H{2}O, whence we floundered like drowned rats."
"Yes, I heard about it."
"So did the whole college, I guess. Now Kerr and I feel that not onlyhave we been insulted, but that the whole freshman class has."
"I agree to that."
"And will you help us to get even?"
"Sure. What you going to do?"
"You'll see later. What I need now is a coil of wire. I want to know ifyou'll get it for me."
"Certainly, but why can't you get it for yourself?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've got about all the marks I can standthis term, and merely because I happened to play an innocent trick inclass to-day I'm forbidden to leave the college grounds for a week. Justwhen I want to go to town, too. So I've got to get some one else to getthe wire for me, and I thought you would. I'll pay for it, of course."
"Sure I'll get it," agreed Tom, not stopping to think that Kerr, thespecial chum of Langridge, might have acted for his friend. "What kinddo you want?"
"I'll tell you. Here's the money," and Langridge handed over a bill,also giving Tom a memorandum of the kind of wire wanted and where to getit in Haddonfield.
"And one more thing," the other youth added as he prepared to take hisleave.
"What's that?"
"Don't, for the life of you, tell a soul that you got the wire for me. Iwant it kept a dead secret. The trick will be all the better then. Willyou promise?"
"I will."
"On your honor as a freshman of Randall College?"
Tom wondered at the other's insistence.
"Of course I will. Shall I swear?" and Tom laughed.
"No, your word is enough," spoke Langridge significantly. "Have the wireby to-night, and we'll teach the sophs a lesson they won't soonforget."