CHAPTER III

PHIL GETS BAD NEWS

For a moment after he struck the bottom of the stairs, Fred Langridge remained stretched out, making no move. Tom Parsons feared his former rival was badly hurt, and was about to call to Sid to go and investigate, when Langridge got up. His face showed the rage he felt, though it was characteristic of him that he first brushed the dust off his clothes. He was nothing if not neat about his person.

"What did you do that for?" he cried to Tom.

"Do what?"

"Shove me down like that. I might have broken my neck. As it is, I've wrenched my ankle."

"I didn't do it," said Tom. "If you'd stayed up where you were, until we got past with the sofa, it wouldn't have happened. You shouldn't have tried to pass us."

"I shouldn't, eh? Well, I guess I've got as good a right on these stairs as you fellows have, with your musty old furniture. You oughtn't be allowed to have it. You deliberately pushed me down, Tom Parsons, and I'll fix you for it!" and Langridge limped about, exaggerating the hurt to his ankle.

"I didn't push you!" exclaimed Tom. "It was an accident that you jostled against me."

"I didn't jostle against you. You deliberately leaned against me to save yourself from falling."

"I did not! And if you----"

"You brought it on yourself, Langridge," interrupted Phil. "You got fresh and hit the sofa, and that made you lose your balance. It's your own fault."

"You mind your business! When I want you to speak I'll address my remarks to you. I'm talking to Parsons now, and I tell him----"

"You needn't take the trouble to tell me anything," declared Tom. "I don't want to hear you. I've told you it was an accident, and if you insist that it was done purposely I have only to say that you are intimating that I am not telling the truth. In that case there can be but one thing to do, and I'll do it as soon as I've gotten this sofa into our room."

There was an obvious meaning in Tom's words, and Langridge had no trouble in fathoming it. He did not care to come to a personal encounter with Tom.

"Well, if you fellows hadn't been moving that measly old sofa in, this would never have happened," growled Langridge as he limped away. "Come on, Gerhart. We'll find more congenial company."

"I guess I'll wait until they get the sofa out of the way," remarked the new chum Langridge appeared to have picked up.

Tom, Sid and Phil resumed their journey, and the old piece of furniture was carried to the upper hall. The stairs were clear, and Gerhart descended. As he passed Tom he looked at him with something of a sneer on his face, and remarked:

"I'll lay you even money that Langridge can whip you in a fair fight."

"Why, you little freshie," exclaimed Phil, "fair fights are the only kind we have at Randall! We don't have 'em very often, but every time we do Tom puts the kibosh all over your friend Langridge. Another thing--it isn't healthy for freshies to bet too much. They might go broke," and with these words of advice Phil caught up his end of the sofa and Tom the other. It was soon in the room the three sophomore chums had selected.

"Now for the chair and the rest of the truck," called Phil.

"Oh, let's rest a bit," suggested Sid, as he stretched out on the sofa. No sooner had he reached a reclining position than he sat up suddenly.

"Wow!" he cried. "What in the name of the labors of Hercules is that?"

He drew from the back of his coat a long nail.

"Why, I must have left it on the sofa when I fixed it," said Phil innocently. "I wondered what had become of it."

"You needn't wonder any longer," spoke Sid ruefully. "Tom, take a look, that's a good chap, and see if there's a very big hole in my back. I think my lungs are punctured."

"Not a bit of it, from the way you let out that yell," said Phil. "That will teach you not to take a siesta during moving operations."

"Not much damage done," Tom reported with a laugh, as he inspected his chum's coat. "Come on now, let's get the rest of it done."

"Do you think it will be safe to leave the sofa here?" asked Sid. "Perhaps I'd better stay and keep guard over it, while you fellows fetch the rest of the things in."

"Well, listen to him!" burst out Phil. "What harm will come to it here?"

"Why, Langridge and that sporty new chum of his may slip in and damage it."

"Say, if they can damage this sofa any more than it is now, I'd like to see them," spoke Tom. "I defy even the fingers of Father Time himself to work further havoc. No, most noble Anthony, the sofa will be perfectly safe here."

"I wouldn't say as much for you, if Langridge gets a chance at you," said Phil to Tom. "You know what tricks he played on you last term."

"Yes; but I guess he's had his lesson," remarked Tom. "Now come on, and we'll finish up."

The three lads went back to the room formerly occupied by Sid and Tom during their freshman year. The chums were pretty much of a size, and they made an interesting picture as they strolled across the campus.

Tom Parsons had come to Randall College the term previous, from the town of Northville, where his parents lived. He did not care to follow his father's occupation of farming, and so had decided on a college education, using part of his own money to pay his way.

As told in the first volume of this series, entitled "The Rival Pitchers," Tom had no sooner reached Randall than he incurred the enmity of Fred Langridge, a rich youth from Chicago, who was manager of the 'varsity ball nine, and also its pitcher. Tom had ambitions to fill that position himself, and as soon as Langridge learned this, he was more than ever the enemy of the country lad.

Randall College was located near the town of Haddonfield, in one of our middle Western States, and was on the shore of Sunny River, not far from Lake Tonoka. Within a comparatively short distance from Randall were two other institutions of learning. One was Boxer Hall, and the other Fairview Institute, a co-educational academy. These three colleges had formed the Tonoka Lake League in athletics, and the rivalry on the gridiron and diamond, as well as in milder forms of sport--rowing, tennis, basketball and hockey--ran high. When Tom arrived there was much talk of baseball, and Randall had a good nine in prospect. Her hopes ran toward winning the Lake League pennant in baseball, but as her nine had been at the bottom of the list for several seasons, the chances were dubious.

After many hardships, not a few of which Langridge was responsible for, Tom got a chance to play on the 'varsity nine. Langridge was a good pitcher, but he secretly drank and smoked, to say nothing of staying up late nights to gamble; and so he was not in good form. When it came to the crucial moment he could not "make good," and Tom was put in his place, in the pitching box, and by phenomenal work won the deciding game. This made Randall champion of the baseball league, and Tom Parsons was hailed as a hero, Langridge being supplanted as pitcher and manager.

But if Langridge and some of the latter's set were his enemies, Tom had many friends, not the least among whom were Phil Clinton and Sidney Henderson, to say nothing of Miss Madge Tyler. This young lady and Langridge were, at first, very good friends, but when Madge found out what sort of a chap the rich city youth was, she broke friendship with him, and Tom had the pleasure of taking her to more than one college affair. This, of course, did not add to the good feeling between Tom and Langridge.

With the winning of the championship game, baseball came practically to an end at Randall, as well as at the other colleges in the Tonoka Lake League, and a sort of truce was patched up between Tom and Langridge. The summer vacation soon came, and the students scattered to their homes. Tom and his two chums agreed to room together during the term which opens with this story, and it may be mentioned incidentally that both Tom and Phil hoped to play on the football eleven. Phil was practically assured of a place, for he had played the game at a preparatory school, and had as good a reputation in regard to filling the position of quarter-back as Tom had in the pitching box.

It was due to a great catch which Phil made in the deciding championship game, almost as much as to Tom's wonderful pitching, that Randall had the banner, and Captain Holly Cross, of the eleven, had marked Phil for one of his men during the season which was about to open on the gridiron.

"Now we'll take the old armchair over," proposed Tom, when he and his chums had reached the room they were vacating. "I guess I can manage that alone. You fellows carry some of the other paraphernalia."

Phil and Sid prepared to load themselves down with gloves, balls, bats, foils and various articles of sport. Before he left with the chair, Tom observed Sid looking behind the door as if for something.

"It's not there, old man. I took it down," said the pitcher, and he patted the pocket that held Madge Tyler's photograph. "You thought you'd make me forget it, didn't you?"

"Do you mean to say you're going to stick girls' pictures up in our new room?" asked Sid.

"Not girls' pictures, in general," replied Tom, "but one in particular."

"You make me tired!" exclaimed Sid, who cared little for feminine society.

"You needn't look at it if you don't like," responded his chum. "But I call her a pretty girl, don't you, Phil?"

"She's an all right looker," answered the other with such enthusiasm that Tom glanced at him a trifle sharply.

"She's no prettier than Phil's sister," declared Sid.

"Have you a sister?" demanded Tom.

Phil bowed in assent.

"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Tom grumblingly.

"Because you never asked me."

"Where is she?"

"Going to Fairview this term, I believe."

"So is Madge--I mean Miss Tyler," burst out Tom. "I'd like to meet her, Phil; your sister, I mean."

"Say, you're a regular Mormon!" expostulated Sid. "If we're going to get this moving done, let's do it, and not talk about girls. You fellows make me sick!"

"Wait until he gets bitten by the bug," said Tom with a laugh, as he shouldered the easy chair.

It took the lads several trips to transfer all their possessions, but at last it was accomplished, and they sat in the new room in the midst of "confusion worse confounded," as Holly Cross remarked when he looked in on them. Their goods were scattered all over, and the three beds in the room were piled high with them.

"It's a much nicer place than the old room," declared Tom.

"It will be when we get it fixed up," added Phil.

"I s'pose that means sticking a lot of girls' photos on the wall, some of those crazy banners they embroidered for you, a lot of ribbons, and such truck," commented Sid disgustedly. "I tell you fellows one thing, though, and that is if you go to cluttering up this room too much, I'll have something to say. I'm not going to live in a cozy corner, nor yet a den. I want a decent room."

"Oh, you can have one wall space to decorate in any style you like," said Tom.

"Yes; he'll probably adopt the early English or the late French style," declared Phil, "and have nothing but a calendar on it. Well, every one to his notion. Hello, the alarm clock has stopped," and he began to shake it vigorously.

"Easy with it!" cried Tom. "Do you want to jar the insides loose?"

"You can't hurt this clock," declared Phil, and, as if to prove his words, the fussy little timepiece began ticking away again, as loudly and insistingly as ever. "Well, let's get the room into some decent kind of shape, and then I'm going out and see what the prospects are for football," he went on. "I want to make that quarter-back position if I have to train nights and early mornings."

"Oh, you'll get it, all right," declared Tom. "I wish I was as sure of a place as you are. I believe----"

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Sid opened it. In the hall stood one of the college messengers.

"Hello, Wallops; what have you there?" asked Tom.

"Telegram for Mr. Phil Clinton."

"Hand it over," spoke Sid, taking the envelope from the youth. "Probably it's a proposition for him to manage one of the big college football teams."

As Wallops, who, like nearly everything and every one else about the college had a nickname, departed down the corridor, Phil opened the missive. It was brief, but his face paled as he read it.

"Bad news?" asked Tom quickly.

"My mother is quite ill, and they will have to operate on her to save her life," said Phil slowly.