CHAPTER IX

“NO DEFEATS!”

They were back in Loring’s room after study, and the subject of the former discussion again occupied them. For that matter, it continued to occupy them, with increasing insistence, for many days. The plan appeared to demand a good deal of discussion, an amount rather out of proportion to the progress made. That progress was slow, however, was largely because Loring was the only one of the three with much leisure for action, and, since Loring’s trips here and there must be made either in the wheel chair or in Wattles’ capable arms, there was a limit to his ability. Fellows had a way of being out of their rooms when Loring arrived, or of not being where rumor had placed them. It required all of Monday afternoon to track Todd Darlington down, and when he was finally brought to bay he proved discouragingly unresponsive to Loring’s eloquence.

Todd was a queer chap in some ways. Class presidencies are usually bestowed as a result of some distinguishing, outstanding merit. Todd, however, had not performed any signal service to the school, was not a distinguished student nor a brilliant athlete, was not popular in the general meaning of the word. Yet he had been honored with the presidency practically without a dissenting voice. Of course, there are politics in a preparatory school election, but scarcely enough to account for the present result. Perhaps had you asked a first class fellow the reason for Todd Darlington’s incumbency he would have looked at first a trifle surprised, then a bit puzzled and would finally have said: “Todd? What’s the matter with him as president?”

The secret was that Todd was impressive. He was eighteen, tall, straight and undeniably fine looking. But that wasn’t all of it. He was not only all those things, but he managed to make you realize it. He had a way of dominating an assembly without pushing himself into the foreground. It wouldn’t be fair to call it bluff, for Todd didn’t bluff. He believed implicitly in Todd Darlington and imposed the belief on others. You felt absolutely certain that Todd was destined for big things, that years later you would be proud of having known him at school. Probably he would be a United States senator, at least. He might even be president. You wouldn’t care to go on record in denial of that. Fortunately he didn’t appear conceited. No one called him “stuck-up.” Tom had termed him a “high hat,” but Tom was likely to secure emphasis, as many of us do, by exaggeration. Todd’s self-conceit went no farther than self-respect, or seemed to. He was invariably genial in a somewhat grave manner. He made no enemies, and, as so often happens, had few close friends. He possessed a pleasantly mellow voice and owed much of his success as a debater to it. If in ordinary conversation he verged a trifle on the oracular, you didn’t resent it. You simply considered that it was Todd Darlington speaking.

Loring’s acquaintance with the first class president was slight, but he had assimilated the general respect for that youth, and after the interview he found himself wondering if, after all, the project was worth while. Todd had smilingly likened it to winning a foot race by cheering yourself around the course, and the simile had sounded clever and apt. However, as the effects of Todd’s personality wore off after Loring had removed himself from Todd’s presence, a little later the younger boy began to miss the pertinence of the simile. He hadn’t proposed that the football team should cheer itself to victory, but that the school should. Of course, a runner couldn’t win a race by shouting all the way, but he might very well win it if the shouting was done by his friends. He began to suspect that Todd had sacrificed sense for the sake of an epigram. By the time supper was over that evening and Clif and Tom had sauntered in he had regained most of his former enthusiasm for the scheme.

“I don’t think,” he reported, “that we can depend on Todd Darlington for support. He didn’t say so, but I fancy he considered me a bit of a nut. He used the word ‘childish’ once or twice in referring to the plan and the word ‘sophomoric’ several times. ‘Sophomoric’ is rather a favorite with Todd.”

“He gives me a severe pain, anyhow,” muttered Tom.

“I also got the impression,” Loring continued, “that he disapproved of the idea on grounds of good form. He appeared to think that creating a ‘hullabaloo,’ as he called it, would be undignified.”

“Sacred Ibis of the River Nile!” Tom exploded. “How’s it any more undignified than cheering at a game? He’s crazy!”

“Well, I think I get his notion,” said Loring, “even if I can’t quite explain it. I fancy it was the idea of the school as a――as a body doing it that galled him. He appeared to think it would be allowable if it was impromptu, extemporaneous, you know, but bad form to go at it deliberately.”

“Sounds to me,” observed Clif, “as though he were trying to draw a line between amateur and professional encouragement! After all, what we propose to do is only to encourage the team, isn’t it?”

“Well, rather more than that, Clif, but ‘encourage’ is near enough. You see, what we’re proposing is not only encouragement for the players but encouragement for the school, too. Not that it matters.”

“Neither does that big stiff,” said Tom indignantly. “Heck, I’d go ahead with it now if only to show him up!”

“It wouldn’t show him up a bit,” answered Loring smilingly, “because he didn’t say a word against it, Tom.”

“Didn’t say――” Tom gasped. “You’re cuckoo!”

“He really didn’t. He criticized it, yes, but he didn’t once tell me that he was against it or that it wouldn’t do. He didn’t even refuse to help, now I come to think of it. The fact is, fellows, Todd Darlington’s a wonder.”

“So’s my grandmother’s gray goose!” jeered Tom.

“He is, though. He ought to make a fine politician some day because he can say things without――without saying them! If he was in Congress I’ll bet he could vote against a measure and get himself recorded in favor of it!”

“Oh, forget Darlington,” said Tom disgustedly. “What’s the next thing to do? How about Sam Erlingby?”

“I haven’t seen him yet. In fact, Tom, it might be better for you to talk to him. You know him a lot better than I do.”

“Yes, but I can’t talk to him the way you can. Let Clif do it, if you don’t want to. He’s got the gift o’ the gab.”

“All right. No, on second thoughts, I’ll do it myself. You fellows have got plenty to do playing football. I guess the publicity stuff, or whatever you want to call it, is up to me. I’ll see Erlingby and one or two others to-morrow. At least, I’ll go after them. It’s plaguey hard to find fellows this weather.”

“Sam will be over on the diamond about four,” said Clif. “They’re having fall practice, you know.”

Loring nodded. “That’s so. I’ll run him down. Any one thought of a six-letter word meaning a rallying cry?”

Every one had, but none of the suggestions met with the approval of the whole and the selection of a slogan was again deferred.

On Tuesday night Loring had better news. Sam Erlingby had pledged enthusiastic support, and so had two other fellows of influence. “And,” narrated Loring, “it was Erlingby who made a corking suggestion. ‘The place to start a thing of this sort,’ he said, ‘is in East Hall. Go after the Junior School kids. They’ll eat it up!’”

“Great stuff!” applauded Clif. “He’s dead right.”

“So I think,” replied Loring. “But I’m wondering if there isn’t this danger, Clif. If the other classes think it’s just a Junior stunt they’ll simply laugh at it and keep away from it.”

“You said a mouthful,” declared Tom. “Better not have it look like a kid’s party.”

“Look here,” said Clif, “this thing’s got to be launched somehow so that it’ll hit the whole school in the face and take ’em by storm.”

“Gosh, talk about mixed metaphors!” exclaimed Tom, grinning.

“Never mind the metaphors,” laughed Loring. “I believe you’re right, Clif. Only, how?”

“Call a meeting, like I suggested before,” answered Tom. “You make a speech. Some other guy makes a speech. A lot of us sit on the platform and clap our hands. We plant some fellow in the audience to get up and say he doesn’t think it can be done. Clif answers him and tells him where to get off and the crowd cheers. Easy, what?”

“If you say it quick,” replied Clif. “Of course, there’ll have to be a meeting before long, but I believe we’ve got to get the fellows in――in a receptive mood first. I mean, we’ve got to start the fire before we――we pile on the fuel. Meetings don’t always act the way you expect them to, I guess.”

“All right, but if we don’t get started pretty soon,” said Tom, “the football season’ll be over! Maybe, though, we’ll be saving our faces if we don’t start until after the Jordan game on Saturday. No one seems to know anything about the Jordan team except where they come from. Me, I don’t fancy dark horses. They’re likely to kick.”

“Oh, I don’t believe Jordan’s dangerous,” answered Clif carelessly. “It’s a small school.”

“What of it? There’s a college down in Kentucky with only about three hundred fellows, and what does its football team do but bite big holes in every other team it runs against? Answer me those! I say, let’s let the scheme ride until we’ve got Jordan out of the way. Maybe after Saturday we won’t want to say any more about it!”

“No, sir, it’s got to be launched before Saturday,” said Clif. “If the Jordan game’s going to be a tough one, why, all the more reason for getting the school together for it. We’ve got to think of some way to spring it, Loring, and――and――”

“Some way to spring it,” offered Tom helpfully, “so that it will hit the world in the eye and knock the wind out of it! No, wait, I’ve got it! Descend upon it like a devastating flood and consume it with the ardor of its――its intensity! Boy, as a metaphor mixer you haven’t got a chance with me! Why, I was mixing metaphors for Heinz when you were still in the cradle!”

“Sometimes,” said Clif, addressing Loring. “I think that if we had a third member in this Triumvirate who didn’t try to turn everything into a joke we’d get along faster.”

“Huh,” retorted Tom, “if it wasn’t for me you two old ravens would dry up and blow away. How about a game of chess, Loring, now that everything’s settled so nicely?”

“There isn’t time, you chump. By the way, I thought you were going to bring that big fellow down here to see me. What’s his name? Trask?”

“Parks? So I was. So I am. I sort of forgot it, though. Bet you he’ll lick the tar out of you, too. How are you and Wattles coming out these days?”

“Wattles has had a sort of a slump since we got back and I’ve been beating him. You see, this law studying of his seems to get most of his leisure thought.”

“Is he still at that?” asked Clif.

“Rather! He’s reading it wherever he can lay his hands on it, and now Mr. Frost is helping him every evening. I suspect that Wattles is with ‘Homer’ right now.”

“For Pete’s sake!” ejaculated Tom. “But I didn’t suppose ‘Homer’ knew law, even if he does lay it down pretty often!”

“Wattles says Mr. Frost studied for the law and then switched to this job. Maybe being assistant to the principal here is a more certain meal ticket than hanging out your shingle as an attorney. Dad says it’s going to be very convenient, having a lawyer in the family, because the fellow he employs now is about eighty and has dyspepsia and is likely to cash in any day.”

Tom chuckled. “I’d certainly like to be around when Wattles makes his first speech to a jury!”

“Do you suppose he really means to be a lawyer?” asked Clif.

“I’ll say he does! Clif, if you or I or Tom studied one half as hard as Wattles does we’d be graduating at Christmas! I’ll bet he can recite Coke or Littleton or any of those fellows right through from beginning to end!”

“Who’s Coke?” asked Tom.

* * * * *

Coach Otis didn’t seem to be much alarmed at the prospect of meeting Jordan Academy three days away. In some way a rumor had circulated through the school to the effect that the new opponent was a savage, man-eating tiger, and that the home team would be represented about five o’clock on Saturday by only a pile of bones. As a matter of fact, Jordan was a small school, tucked away at the other side of the state, about whose football prowess there was no data obtainable. A former instructor at Wyndham, now at Jordan, had asked Doctor Wyndham for the contest. “J. W.” had passed the request on to the Athletic Committee, with a favoring notation. The “Ath. Com.” had, in turn, handed it on to the football manager. The latter, in consultation with the coach, had provided Jordan with a date, eliminating a better known adversary in the process. Owens had done this not because he approved of the transaction but because he knew very well that the “Ath. Com.” would hold up the schedule until he did do it. Thus a merely good-natured impulse to be obliging on the part of the principal had eventually caused the school deep perturbation. Because it is human nature to fear the unknown, Wyndham by the end of the week was crediting the most awesome tales of Jordan’s bloodthirstiness. The report that the Jordan line averaged 190 pounds, and that the backfield was the fastest quartette in the business, started none knew where and spread through the school. Close on the heels of that came the rumor that the Jordan eleven had last year played the Yale second team to a scoreless tie. As there was no record of the Yale scrub available the rumor couldn’t be successfully contradicted. Perhaps no one particularly wanted to contradict it, anyhow, for although the legend foretold the doom of the home team it likewise fed the excitement. By Friday it was generally conceded that the morrow’s game, while certain to see the decisive defeat of Wyndham, was to be a whangdinger and one not to be missed.

There was widespread dissatisfaction apparent. Coach Otis, it was generally held, should have made more of an effort to prevent disaster. He had not given the team any new plays, nor had he seemingly taken special pains to strengthen a defense that was acknowledgedly weak. In short, “G. G.” had gone about his business quite as usual and as though the approaching game was just another Freeburg High School contest. The opinion was frequently expressed that he was in ignorance of the facts possessed by every one else and that it was plainly the duty of some fellow to put him wise. However, there were no volunteers for the job. This was probably owing to a well-founded suspicion that the coach would not prove receptive to advice or thankful to the adviser.

Even the players absorbed the general pessimism. Or most of them did. There were some who remained incredulous and demanded the source of the various rumors. Jeff Ogden, for instance, only grinned when anxious acquaintances sought his opinion of the Jordan team. Or, if pressed sufficiently, he answered: “You know as much as I do, and that’s mighty little. Guess we’ll scrape through, though.” Guy Owens even got impatient and answered shortly when well-meaning friends sorrowfully pointed it out to him that it would have been safer to have given Jordan a later date. Quarter Back Houston frankly laughed in the face of disaster. And there were others who refused to acknowledge defeat in advance; Clif among their number.

Clif’s confidence in the local aggregation resulted in the laying of an enormous wager on the outcome of Saturday’s game. Tom was the second party in the contract. Tom was certain that Jordan was all that rumor had her, and even a little bit more, and, while he looked forward to the contest with added zest for that very reason, he was emphatic in his assertion that “the old team was sure in for a whale of a trouncing.” He grew a trifle impatient with Clif because the latter maintained what he called the “Pollyanna business” and, when argument failed, offered to lay a wager. Tom was among those who believe that an offer to bet is the final convincing argument!

“Oh, I don’t want to profit by your ignorance,” answered Clif maddeningly. “Keep your money, Thomas, and found an asylum for boneheads.”

“If I did you’d be the first inmate! You’d be put in the incurable ward, too, you blithering idiot! Look here, I’ll bet you that Jordan licks us, and I’ll――”

“How do I know you won’t throw the game if I bet all this vast sum with you?” laughed Clif.

“Oh, talk sense,” Tom grumbled.

“I am. It’s been done before. I’ve read of several cases where a player has deliberately thrown a game away in order to secure pecuniary profit. So far, Tom, I’ve found you an upright and honorable gentleman, but how do I know what you’ll do when faced by a great temptation? You’d only have to drop a punt or――or set fire to the Jordan goal posts――”

“You make me ill,” fumed Tom. “Will you bet or won’t you?”

“You insist? Well, what do you want to bet, Tommy? Mind now, there’s a hard winter approaching, so don’t be reckless.”

“I’ll bet you the ice-cream cones at Burger’s!”

“Ye gods, what an anticlimax!” moaned Clif. “I expected you to say five dollars at the very leastest.”

“You didn’t. I don’t bet for money, and you know it. Make it――make it _two_ cones, then!”

Clif managed to shudder quite realistically. “Tom, you’ll fill a pauper’s grave if you go on the way you’ve started. Two cones! But all right. Here’s my hand on it.”

“I don’t want your old hand! All I want is those cones. And I’ll get them, too. You’re so blamed cocksure, you dumb-bell, it’ll do you good to lose!”

“Mind this, though, Tom. I’ll have my eagle eye on you every minute, and if you pull any funny business the bet’s off. If you make more than your normal number of fumbles in the game, say three――well, I’ll be generous; four――”

“Climb a tree,” said Tom. “The last fumble I made was when we played the Rome ‘Gladiators,’ about 700 B.C.”

It was really remarkable how stirred up the school managed to get over that Jordan Academy game. After all, the losing of an early-season contest was not an unparalleled thing by any means, and if the enemy won life would doubtless go on much the same as before. But you couldn’t have convinced the average Wyndhamite of that just then. The Jordan game had assumed a fictitious importance, had indeed taken on the semblance of a potential disaster somewhat akin to the overwhelming of Pompeii or the recent earthquake in Japan. It was the principal, almost the only, subject of conversation during Friday and most of Saturday. One might easily have pictured the invading players as an army of Vandals descending on ancient Gaul. Preposterous size, strength and ferocity were attributed to the linemen and the backs were little less than super-human exponents of speed and stamina and versatility. Over in the Junior School the youngsters had their own particular legends to gloat upon, and in front of the fire in the recreation room that Friday night shudderous tales were whispered. One could have felt very, very sorry for the Wyndham Team, but, strangely enough, nothing like sorrow was expressed. Still, it is often so. If a calamity is stupendous enough, excitement and awe relegate pity to the background of our emotions. Perhaps it was thus at Wyndham. The fellows seemed to take a grim pleasure in the anticipated overwhelming of their warriors and the morrow had all the earmarks of a fine old Roman holiday. The score was variously predicted as anywhere between 12 and 45 to 0. A fellow who gave it as his opinion that Jordan might run up as few points as six or that Wyndham might, by some fortunate fluke, manage to score was looked on as a fit subject for――well, for Tom’s suggested asylum for boneheads!

And then Saturday morning dawned and, just when it was, as you might say, universally conceded that Wyndham couldn’t possibly avoid defeat, the school blossomed――yes, really, blossomed is the right word――with blue and white placards bearing the amazing, preposterous inscription:

NO DEFEATS!