“Broadwood had a little team, It couldn’t play at all,
And ev’ry time it tried to pass
It dropped the blooming ball!
The ball, the ball, the ball, the ball,
It dropped the blooming ball!
“It tried to play with Yardley once,
And, oh, it was a shame
To see the way old Yardley went
And took away that game!
The game, the game, the game, the game,
And took away the game!”
“Some range, what?” asked The Duke, slapping Harry Merrow on the shoulder as they clattered up the last flight in Clarke. “Honestly, I don’t see how grand opera’s got along all these years without me! ‘The game, the game, the game, the game; And took away the ga-a-me!’ Get that chord? Kind of bad, what? Sometimes I have to pity Caruso and Scotti, old man.”
“Why, they don’t have to hear you, do they?”[242] asked Harry innocently, as The Duke flung open the portal of Number 47.
“Good thing for them they can’t! They’d swallow a couple of solos and commit suicide. Sit down and be miserable. For once that Fido of mine isn’t here.”
“That what?” asked Harry, mystified.
“Pardon me; I should have said fidus, fidus Achates. Get me? Honestly, old man, I don’t know how I’m going to go on living with him. Here it is only the middle of November, and I’m worn to a string. My health is giving way under the strain. If I was only certain about one thing——”
“What’s that?” asked the other, as The Duke paused thoughtfully.
“Whether he’s a skink or a bombyx. If I knew that I’d be able to get on better.”
“What the dickens is a—a skink?”
“A skink? Well, it’s something like a grus, only not nearly so intelligent.”
“You’re a silly chump,” laughed Harry.
“Worse than that, O Discerning One! I’m crazy, absolutely crazy! So would you be if you had to live with Cotton. Look at that table! See the mess! It’s always like that. I, personally, am naturally neat and tidy, Merrow, but Cotton—well, see for yourself! He—he annoys me!”
[243]
“Things do look a bit messy,” acknowledged Harry.
“Messy! My word! Messy, say you? That’s no name for it. It takes half my time keeping this place picked up. Well, let’s forget my troubles and talk about yours.”
“I haven’t any, I guess. Except that Kilts is down on me just at present and I’m having a bad time with math.”
“Well, you heard about me, didn’t you? Had a terrible falling-out with Old Tige; he got quite—quite insulting Saturday. You see, I—er—neglected to hand in a theme, and he said I’d have to do it by Saturday noon. And I really meant to because, of course, he was quite within his rights, you know. So Friday evening I went over to the library and worked and worked and delved and delved in the—the musty archives getting notes for one of the nicest little themes you ever saw! Oh, I must have worked for ten or fifteen minutes! Armed with my notes I returned here fully intending to sport my oak, as we say in dear old England, and do that theme. But here was Cotton scratching away with his old pen and shuffling his silly feet and making noises in his throat. It was quite impossible to write a theme under such circumstances. So I—well, I didn’t. Says I to myself, I will arise betimes in[244] the morning and do it. Which I did; that is, fairly betimes. But where were my notes? I ask you, Merrow, as man to man, where were my notes? Flown! Decamped! Utterly vanished! So, as there was no time to get more notes, I started in to write a theme on the simple little subject of Walter Scott. It was a—well, a hurried effort, and as it turned out I got Sir Walter mixed up in my mind with Thackeray. Result, disapproval on the part of Mr. Edmund Gaddis; disapproval and hard words. I was patient with him, Merrow, but it was difficult, for he said things no gentleman should say to another. We parted—well, scarcely friends. And I’ve got two themes now hanging over my head instead of one. And only until to-morrow evening to do them.” The Duke sighed and shook his head. “But such is life!”
“Too bad,” murmured Harry sympathetically. “And the dickens of it is that this is no time to push a fellow’s nose to the grindstone. No fellow can do decent work just before the Broadwood game; it isn’t fair to expect it.”
“I wish that silly game was over with,” said The Duke fervently. “Honest, I get so excited and nervous and stirred up about it you’d think I was going to play quarter-back. By the way, Duffey—he rooms with Bert Simms, you know—Duffey[245] says Bert is all up in the air over the game; doesn’t sleep for calling signals all night, and can’t eat.”
Harry looked incredulous. “Why, I saw Simms this morning and talked to him, and he seemed as untroubled as you please.”
“That so? Well, it’s only what I heard. How is Burtis’s arm getting on? I haven’t seen him since Sunday.”
“All right. They’re having a leather cuff made that’s to fit right over the wrist. I didn’t know a simple dislocation could be so bad.”
“What’s the difference between a dislocation and a sprain?” demanded The Duke.
Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose that when you sprain your ankle you just pull the tendons, don’t you, or the ligaments? And when you dislocate it you throw the bone out of joint.”
“I’m glad we don’t have to take an exam in physiology right now,” said The Duke.
“Yes, lucky for us,” laughed Harry. “They say the trouble with Kendall’s wrist is that he’s likely to dislocate it again very easily if he isn’t careful. Payson has let him off practice for the rest of the week, Gerald says.”
“Good stuff! After the way he played Saturday they’d ought to let him do as he pleases. I[246] certainly thought they had us beaten there for a while!”
“Me, too. What do you think about Broadwood? Think we have any show, Duke?”
“If Payson plays the right sort of game, yes. If he keeps those heavy beef-eaters eternally on the jump by hitting their ends we may tire them out enough to get within kicking distance. When we do we want to let Burtis do the rest, for we’ll never get a touchdown by straight line-plunging. Did you see the score they rolled up on Forest Hill?”
Harry nodded. “Twenty-seven to six. Forest Hill scored, though.”
“On a forward pass that ought never to have worked. They can say what they like about Broadwood being fast, and maybe they are fast for their weight, but they can’t be fast enough to stand a running game very long. Payson ought to send our backs around their ends, try forward passes and all his bundle of tricks, Merrow. Just plain, old-fashioned football won’t make a dent in that team!”
“That’s what I think. And they say he’s got a lot of good plays outside tackles. But the trouble is that our own team isn’t so all-fired fast, Duke.”
“It’s the slowest Yardley team I ever saw,”[247] replied The Duke. “If Payson doesn’t get some jump and ginger into it between now and Saturday we’re goners.”
“And as this is Tuesday and there wasn’t much jump yesterday, I guess we are!”
“Oh, you can’t tell by yesterday. Monday’s always a bad day. There ought to be a difference by to-morrow, though. He’s got nothing to do except put pep into them and teach the new signals, as I und............