CHAPTER XIX

A FALLING OUT

Harry made no mention of his meeting with Cotton. There were moments when he regretted that stamp. Frequently he turned to the space in his big album where it should be mounted and as often sighed his regret. Some time he meant to have one of those stamps, only he would get it without having to play traitor. Meanwhile he delved more furiously than ever into his albums and his envelopes, wrote letters and received them, perused catalogues and lists, and became an earnest student of three different philatelic journals. It seemed to his roommate that the finer the weather became the closer Harry stuck to his room. Arthur growled and threatened and begged, but all to slight purpose. Day by day Arthur, returning from the field, discovered Harry leaning over his albums in a litter of catalogues and stamps, the air redolent of library paste.

About the beginning of the second week in May, when the blue sky was swept clean of clouds and the sunlight just drew you out of doors as a magnet draws steel filings, Arthur’s patience gave way. Threats, he told himself grimly, had lost their virtue. Things had gone wrong all day, and Arthur was in a decidedly bad temper when he got back to the room. Stevie, or Mr. Austin, to give his real name, had hauled him over the coals in chemistry class in the morning――to the signal amusement of his fellows; he had failed miserably at Greek after dinner, and then, to clap the climax, he had broken his favorite vaulting pole at practice. All that was enough to spoil the best temper any one ever had! And now here was that little idiot of a roommate of his disregarding everything he had been told, wallowing around in a room that was a veritable pigsty and that smelled to heaven of that sickening library paste!

Arthur’s patience gave way, and his temper with it. Crossing the room in three bounds, he lifted Harry from his chair, seized the two big albums and the smaller one, and, striding to his closet, opened the door and tossed the books on to the shelf. Then he turned the key in the lock viciously and placed it in his pocket.

From table to closet stretched a gay, vari-colored path of loose stamps. Harry, bewildered, open-mouthed, looked from the litter on the carpet to Arthur. But before he could summon words to express some of the thoughts within him, Arthur took the floor. He had plenty to say himself, and proceeded to say it.

“I told you what I’d do if you didn’t quit,” he began, angrily. “I said I’d pitch those fool books out the window, but if I did you’d sneak them back again. Well, they’re where you won’t get them for awhile, my son, and you can just make up your mind to that! No more stamps for a week, and not then unless you spend a good part of every day outdoors. You’ve got to play tennis and take walks and get some fresh air into your little starving lungs and some color into your little white face, Harry. Now you clear up that mess there and get these stamps off the floor.”

“I want my albums!” said Harry, hotly.

“You won’t get them.”

“I _will_ get them! You’ve no right to boss me, Arthur Thompson! You――you’re a big bully, that’s what you are! I want my books!”

“Shut up that noise and do as I tell you. Clear that table off.”

“I won’t! I won’t, and you can’t make me! I want my stamp books!”

Arthur shrugged his shoulders wearily.

“You heard what I said, Harry, and you’d better believe I mean it. I’ve given you plenty of chances to act right. Now you can do without your old stamps for awhile.”

“I’ll go to Mr. Collins! I’ll――I’ll break open that door!”

Harry was so angry that his voice broke, and the tears came to his eyes. He sprang at the closet door and tugged at the handle in frantic rage. Finding that useless he faced Arthur with white face and glaring eyes. He wasn’t a pleasant sight to look at, and Arthur turned away in disgust and began to gather Harry’s rubbish into a pile on the table.

“You let those things alone! They’re not yours!” shrieked Harry. He seized Arthur’s arm with one hand and aimed a puny blow at him with the other. Arthur seized him and dumped him ingloriously on his bed, howling and kicking.

“Look here,” he said, sternly, “we won’t have any of that, Harry. What you ought to have is a mighty good hiding, and I’ve got more than half a mind to give it to you. Now stop that noise and behave yourself. Do you hear? If you don’t, I’ll turn you over and spank you until you’ll have something to yell for!”

The threat served its purpose. Harry ceased his noise and stopped struggling, but the looks he gave his roommate were full of hate.

“You――you make me sick,” he muttered. “Just because you helped Gerald pull me out of the pond last year you think you can do anything you like. But I’ll show you! It wasn’t you saved my life, anyway; it was Gerald. You just helped pull me ashore. You give me those books right away, Arthur Thompson, or it will be the worse for you. You think I can’t get even, but I can. I know a way, a dandy way!” He smiled maliciously. “You’d better do what I say or you’ll be sorry for it!”

“You keep quiet,” answered Arthur, calmly, his own anger having worn itself out. “I don’t care for your threats, my son. The long and short of it is that you don’t get those books to mess around with until you get outdoors every day for a week. That’s settled.”

Harry’s manner suddenly became as quiet as Arthur’s. He sat up on the bed and smoothed his rumpled attire. Then he walked to the table and picked up his cap.

“All right,” he said, darkly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll give you one more chance. Do I get my books?”

“You do not,” replied Arthur, emphatically.

Harry opened the door and turned for a parting shot.

“You’ll wish you hadn’t been so smart,” he sneered, “before I’m through with you.”

Arthur shrugged his shoulders indifferently and Harry closed the door quietly behind him.