CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH SOME ONE BECOMES A VICTIM

When Sid and Tom, after glee club practice that night, were ascending the stairs to their floor, Sid stumbled, about half way up the flight. To save himself from a fall he put out his left hand, and came down heavily on it. As he did so he uttered an exclamation of pain.

"What's the matter?" asked Tom.

"Gave my thumb a fierce wrench! It hurts like blazes! Why didn't you tell me I was going to fall, and I'd have stayed in to-night?" he asked half humorously.

"I'm not a prophet," replied Tom. "But come on to the room, and we'll put some arnica on it. I've got some."

Holding his injured thumb tightly in his other hand, Sid finished climbing the stairs, declaiming, meanwhile, against his bad luck.

"Oh, you're a regular old woman!" exclaimed Tom. "Pretty soon it'll be so bad that if you see a black cat cross your path you won't go to lectures."

"I wish I had a black cat to use when I'm due in Latin class," spoke Sid. "Positively I get more and more rotten at that blamed stuff every day! I need a black cat, or something. Wow! How my thumb hurts!"

"Get out!" cried Tom. "Many a time on first base I've seen you stop a hot ball, and never say a word."

"That's different," declared his chum. "Hurry up and get out your arnica."

"Say, you fellows make noise enough," grumbled Phil at the entrance of his roommates. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, Sid tried to go upstairs on his hands, and he didn't make out very well," replied Tom. "I've got two patients on my list now. How are you, Phil?"

"Oh, so-so. Gerhart was here a while ago."

"He was? What did he want?"

"Left a note for you. It's on the table."

"Humph! Invitation to a little spread he's going to give. Didn't you fellows get any?" spoke Tom as he read it.

"No; and I don't want one," from Phil.

"And I'm not going," declared Tom. "Gerhart is too much of a cad for me."

"Insufferably so!" added Phil. "The little puppy gave himself such airs in here that I wanted to kick him out. But I wasn't going to say anything, for I thought you might be getting chummy with him, Tom, seeing that he left the note for you."

"No, indeed. I don't know what his object is, nor why he should invite me. He and Langridge are a pair, and they can stick together," and Tom wadded up the invitation and threw it into the waste basket.

"Say, if you're going to get the arnica, I wish you'd get a move on," implored Sid, who was stretched out on the sofa. "This hurts me worse than not knowing my Virgil when I'm called on in Pitchfork's class."

"Then it can't hurt very much," said Phil. "Let's see it."

Sid held out a hand, the thumb of which was beginning to swell.

"Why don't you use some of my liniment instead of arnica for it?" proposed Phil. "It's just the stuff for a sprain. Here, pour some on your hand," and Phil, whose left arm was in a sling, handed Sid the bottle from the table. Sid poured a generous quantity on his thumb.

"Look out for the rug!" exclaimed Tom. "Do you want to spoil it?" for the liniment was dripping from Sid's hand.

"Spoil it? Spoil this tattered and torn specimen of a fake oriental?" queried Sid with a laugh. "Say, if we spread molasses on it the thing couldn't look much worse than it does. I've a good notion to strike for a new one."

"Don't," begged Phil. "We don't have to clean our feet when we come in now, and if we had a new rug we'd feel obliged to."

"All right, have it your own way," remarked Tom. "But you've got enough liniment on there for two thumbs. Here, give me the bottle, and rub what's on your hand in where the swelling is."

Sid extended the bottle to Tom. Phil, who was holding the cork, endeavored to insert it during the transfer. The result was a fumble, the phial slipped from Sid's grasp, Tom made a grab for it, but missed, and Phil, with only one good hand, could do nothing. The bottle crashed to the floor and broke, the liniment running about in little rivulets from a sort of central lake.

"Now you have done it!" exclaimed Tom.

"Who?" demanded Sid.

"You and Phil. Why didn't you let me do the doctoring? You two dopes aren't able to look after yourselves! Look at the rug now!"

"It was as much your fault as ours," declared Sid. "Why didn't you grab the bottle?"

"Why didn't you hand it to me? I like your nerve!"

"That's a nice spot on a rug," said Phil in disgust.

"It adds to the beauty," declared Sid. "It just matches the big grease spot on the other side, which was left as a souvenir by the former occupants of this study. They must have made a practice of dropping bread and butter on the floor about eight nights a week. But say, if you want to do something, Tom, rub this stuff into my thumb, will you?"

"Sure; wait until I pick up this broken glass. I don't want to cut my feet on it, in case I should take to walking in my sleep."

He was soon vigorously massaging Sid's injured hand, using a piece of flannel as directed by Phil, and was given a vote of thanks for the professional manner in which he did it.

"I'm sorry about your liniment, Phil," said Tom. "It's all gone. The only thing I see for you to do is to cut out that piece of the rug where it has soaked in, and bind it on your shoulder."

"Oh, it doesn't matter. I won't need any more to-night, and to-morrow I'll get some more from the doctor."

Sid was the first to awaken the next morning. A peculiar sensation about his injured hand called his attention to it. He pulled it from under the covers and glanced at it. Then he tried to bend the fingers. They were as stiff as pieces of wood. So was the thumb. It was as if it had been encased in a plaster cast.

"I say, you fellows!" called Sid in some alarm.

"What's the matter?" inquired Tom. "Don't you know it's Sunday, and we can sleep as long as we like?"

"Look at my hand! Look at it!" exclaimed Sid tragically. "I can't use it!"

Something in his tones made Tom get up. He strode over to the bed.

"Say, that is mighty queer," he remarked, as he tried to bend Sid's fingers, and could not. "You must have given yourself a fearful knock."

"Or else that liniment wasn't the right thing for it," added Phil, sitting up. "Better call the doc."