CHAPTER XVIII

TOM HAS NERVES

Tom was extremely flattering when he returned from practice. He declared that Clif’s absence from the team was universally regarded as a frightful catastrophe. He even hinted that “G. G.” was on the verge of a nervous breakdown as a consequence of Clif’s loss. Mr. Bingham visibly swelled with pride, but Clif told him not to be a silly ass and requested particulars of the afternoon. Well, said Tom, they had managed to pull through the scrimmage to the tune of 11 to 3. Weldon had been in Clif’s place at left tackle; but, joking aside, hadn’t played it for beans. Coles had had a whack at it, too, just at the end. Oh, Clif could laugh, but the old outfit had felt his loss just the same!

Friday he was allowed to get up and move around the room. Being an invalid wasn’t all velvet by any means. You had to do your lessons, even if you did carry your arm strapped up under your chin, because if you didn’t something unpleasant would happen to you when you returned to classes. That day Clif began to entertain visitors. More than a dozen fellows called. They all said about the same thing, but they were genuinely sorry for the accident and convinced Clif of it. Lemuel John was of the number. He came tiptoeing into the room just after dinner, looking extremely concerned, and collided with two chairs before he reached Clif. They talked football and Lemuel John showed a surprisingly complete understanding of the subject for one who, a bare fortnight before, had been incredibly ignorant. He said he guessed Mr. Babcock meant to use him at guard right along from now on. He had played the position three days in succession and was getting the hang of it. Clif had heard much the same thing from Tom.

“Sure do miss you, Bingham,” said Lemuel John in taking leave. “You were a mighty nice fellow to play against.”

“Huh,” laughed Clif, “you liked me because you could put it all over me!”

Lemuel John grinned and shook his head. “That ain’t so, but I did feel sort of proud when I bested you once or twice. This fellow Smythe, and the other fellow――Weldon, ain’t it?――aren’t terribly smart, I guess. Anyway, I don’t have a hard time with ’em.”

Clif was doing his best to take his fate philosophically, but it wasn’t easy. If the accident had happened earlier in the season he could have borne it better, for then there would have been a chance of getting back into harness for a little time at least before the end came. But as it was, the doctor’s best verdict was two weeks, and two weeks would bring them to the nineteenth, and the Wolcott game was on the twenty-second. Oh, Mr. Otis might let him run in for thirty seconds at the end of the game; a coach would have to be pretty hard-hearted to refuse him that comfort; but there was no satisfaction in such a sop!

Mr. Otis visited him that Friday evening during study hour. He was very sympathetic and kind, but his visit didn’t make Clif any happier. Even “G. G.’s” repeated assertion that Clif’s loss to the team was a genuine misfortune, while pleasing as a compliment, didn’t butter any parsnips. Clif wanted to play football.

Loring came, borne by the faithful Wattles, and Clif gave a full but apathetic narrative of his adventure in pursuit of the Camel. Loring’s look of incredulous delight when told that the chap’s name really was Campbell got a laugh from Clif. “Have you said anything to any one about it?” Loring asked.

“Only to dad, and he didn’t repeat it.”

“I suppose we’d better tell Mr. Otis. He hasn’t been back since. The Camel, I mean. Maybe he suspected something, eh?”

“I don’t think he did,” replied Clif. “I don’t believe he connected me with the fellow on the road. He couldn’t have seen my face very well, for it was getting pretty dark, and when I followed him to his room I put my cap in my pocket. He probably thought me one of the Wolcott bunch, or, maybe, some chap from the village.”

“Well, if he should come back――” Loring paused and viewed Clif thoughtfully.

“Of course,” mused the latter, “you can’t make trouble for a fellow just because he comes and watches the football practice.”

“Not――er――officially,” agreed Loring.

“No, not officially.” Then they looked at each other a moment in silence. Finally Clif smiled. Then Loring smiled.

“We’ll wait a few days before we say anything to Mr. Otis, I guess,” Loring said. “How is the shoulder?”

“Oh, it hurts,” answered Clif. “The doctor says it’s knitting. If it is, it gives me a jab every time it takes a stitch!”

“I feel pretty rotten about it,” said the other. “If I hadn’t started the business you wouldn’t have got smeared up this way. No hope of getting back to the team, I suppose?”

“Not a mite. But you don’t need to blame yourself. It was my own silly fault. I don’t honestly believe I ever took a chance like that before. Of course, the road looked clear enough, but I oughtn’t to have been going so fast. You see, I was so plaguey hungry! And then, confound it, when I could eat I didn’t want a thing!”

“Too bad you can’t see the game to-morrow.”

“Rotten! Are you going over? You said last week――”

“No.” Loring shook his head. “I changed my mind.” He didn’t state, however, that he had changed it on Clif’s account. “Tell you what I thought we’d do, old chap. If you are going to be around to-morrow――” Clif nodded――“we’ll get the returns by telephone in East. The booths are right near my room, you know.”

“Well, but who――how――”

“There’s a chap named Sanford, a junior, whom I’ve been helping a bit with his Latin. He’s a decent kid. Sanford’s agreed to call up East on the telephone after the first half and after the game’s over and slip me the tidings. At least, we’ll know how it’s going. It will beat waiting until the crowd gets back.”

“Good stunt,” agreed Clif. “I’d sure like to see that game, though. Tom says no one seems very hopeful.”

Loring shook his head. “I was hopeful until to-day, but every one else is so pessimistic that I’m slipping, too. I’m rather afraid that we’re in for a licking. They say Horner’s awfully good.”

“She was last year, too.” Clif shook his head gloomily. “What price ‘No Defeats’?”

“I’m going to be pretty sore if we do lose,” muttered the other. “Still, perhaps we’ll pull through. The left side of our line isn’t much, but maybe Horner won’t discover it.”

“Don’t you fool yourself. Horner knows all there is to know, I’ll bet. How much will you give me for this button, Loring?”

Loring glanced at the blue-and-white disk on Clif’s lapel and smiled. “Just what it cost you,” he answered. Then: “Oh, hang it, Clif, we mustn’t get licked now after getting through so far!” he protested. “We’ve _got_ to win!”

“That’s the talk!” Clif sat up so suddenly that he jarred the injured shoulder, and winced. “We’ll have to use the old will power, Loring. If we can’t see the game we can still root for a victory. Me, I refuse to consider the possibility of defeat. Calm and serene, I face the impending struggle with――with unshaken confidence!”

“A-a-ay!” cheered Loring.

“‘No Defeats’ is my motto, and long may it wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

“Gentlemen,” said Tom, entering on Clif’s peroration, “I shall have to ask you to make less noise. It is requested that quiet reign after nine-thirty in order that the gallant heroes of to-morrow’s battle may retire early and slumber undisturbed. I shall also have to ask you, Mr. Deane, to take your departure.”

“Go to thunder,” said Loring pleasantly.

“Tie that outside,” advised Clif. “Where do you get all this soft pedal stuff?”

“Coach’s orders,” replied Tom with dignity. “After nine-thirty――”

“It isn’t nine-thirty yet, you poor boob!”

“It is by my watch. At least, it’s nine-twenty-eight.”

“Your watch!” jeered Clif. “What good’s a watch that’s soaked two or three times a week?”

“This valuable and inflammable――I mean infallible timepiece has never been pawned, I’d have you know.”

“No, but you take it into the bathtub regularly. How many times do you suppose you’ve had it under water, Tom?”

Tom grinned. “Maybe a dozen. It doesn’t seem to hurt it much, though. Oh, it gains a few minutes now and then, or loses; but it still ticks on.”

“How was the meeting?” asked Loring.

“Noisy. Jeff made a pretty good spiel, though.”

“They didn’t call on you for a speech, by any chance?” Clif inquired.

“No, and I had one all ready, too. I was going to say: ‘Mr. Chairman, gentlemen and members of the faculty.’” Tom struck an attitude and stared sternly at the lamp. “‘Unprepared as I am for this unexpected honor, it nevertheless gives me great pleasure to be here this evening and find before me this brilliant assemblage of beauty and gallantry. Never before in all my experience as a public speaker have I addressed a more intelligent looking audience. Even, gentlemen, when I turn and gaze upon those seated here on the platform, I still find distinct traces of――I dare not say intelligence, but of sanity. I particularly refer to those on my left, the shining-faced members of our so-called musical clubs. The others, as you will readily perceive, are football players, faculty and similar members of the lower orders; in a word, ameba. I will say――’”

“Where’d you get it?” inquired Loring. “‘Ameba’! What do you know of our young friend, Clif? I believe he’s looked into a dictionary!”

“Wrong. Mr. Babcock used it one day last week in hygiene. What else, Tom?”

“You’ve interrupted the flow of my thoughts,” said Tom severely. “There was much more of it, but it has gone. I composed it while ‘Pinky’ Hilliard was getting off his usual drivel about ‘honor before success.’ It was good, too.”

“Did you really sit on the platform?” asked Clif.

“Me? I wouldn’t go near it! Sit up there to be stared at and try to look like a dog-gone hero? Not on your radio! I sat at the back with Lemuel John and we ate peanuts. We had to crack them in our pockets; and that reminds me.” Tom moved to the wastebasket and got rid of the shells.

“What was the spirit of the meeting?” asked Loring.

“Death with honor,” replied Tom, finding a peanut that hadn’t been opened and gobbling the contents before Clif could formulate a protest. “Oh, we all sang and yelled hard enough, and shouted ‘No Defeats!’ whenever we got a chance; but, heck, every one knows we’re going to get the can!”

“That’s the wrong thought,” said Clif. “Of course we’ll get licked if you and the rest of the gang go over there to-morrow with that belief. Loring and I are optimists, Thomas. We don’t know the meaning of the word defeat. We――”

“You’ll know it to-morrow,” answered Tom, pulling off his coat. “Lemuel John talked the same sort of rot. Stuff about ‘the team that won’t be beaten can’t be beaten,’ and all that. Some one’s been feeding that baby raw milk! I’m going to bed.”

“Which means that I’ve got to beat it,” said Loring. “And my carriage wasn’t to call until nine-fifty. If you want to get rid of me, Tom, you’ll have to find Wattles. He’s down in the library.”

“Heck, I don’t want to get rid of you. You won’t bother me any, because I don’t expect to do much sleeping before midnight. I’m willing to try, just to oblige ‘G. G.,’ but I know it can’t be done. My sprightly little mind is far, far too active. ‘Just before the battle, Mother, I――’”

“Blessed if Tom hasn’t got nerves!” marveled Clif.

“I’ve got something,” growled the accused. “You would, too, if you’d listened to ‘G. G.’ this evening in the gym.”

“What did he say?” inquired Loring.

“Never mind,” answered Tom darkly. “He said plenty. He said things no gentleman can say to another without fighting!”

“Did you fight him?” asked Clif innocently.

“Did I? I’ll say I did! I knocked him down and kicked him all over the gym floor――in my mind! If we do win that blamed game to-morrow it’ll be just because he told us we couldn’t do it; that we haven’t got the stuff in us to beat a team that knows any real football! The big stiff!”

“Well, have you?” asked Loring quietly.

Tom’s head came up and he glared across belligerently, one shoe suspended in air. Then he grinned. “You wait and see,” he muttered.

“Atta boy!” applauded Clif, laughing.

“Oh, I don’t say we’re going to beat those guys,” said Tom doggedly; “but ‘G. G.’ isn’t going to be able to tie any can to me when it’s over! I’ll show the fresh simp that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says I dope _my_ hair!”

“_What!_ Did he say that?” exclaimed Clif.

“Yes, he did. Not me, especially, but the run of us. ‘Trouble with you tea hounds,’ he said, ‘is that you’re scared to move around much for fear you’ll get the slickum off your hair!’”

“Oh, lovely!” Clif gurgled.

“I don’t see anything lovely about it,” protested Tom, viewing the laughing countenances of the others. “Or funny, either. ‘Tea hounds,’ eh? Fresh Aleck!”

“Well, Tom, you know you did work up a patent-leather finish one night in Paris,” said Loring. “Maybe it still shows.”

“Oh, shut up! I just tried the stuff, and you know it. Anyhow――” and Tom seemed to be struck by a sudden thought――“what if some of us do use the stuff? Don’t we wear head guards?”

To Tom’s puzzlement, the others again went into gales of laughter. “You make me sick,” he informed them aggrievedly.

“You’re so――so beautifully literal,” chuckled Loring.

“I’m going to suggest,” Clif laughed, “that we change that slogan to ‘No Slickum!’” Wattles’ appearance relieved the situation.