CHAPTER XVIII

LORING DECIDES

After practice that afternoon Dan encountered Alfred Loring in the locker room. Loring grabbed him by his bath-robe and fixed him with a stern gaze.

“Say, Vinton, Joe Chambers says you’re going to join Oxford. Is that right?”

“Why--I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided,” stammered Dan.

“Then it isn’t too late,” said Loring, with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “There’s still time to save yourself from humiliation and dishonor.”

“Don’t you like Oxford?” asked Dan innocently.

“Oxford! _Oxford!_” replied the other scathingly. “Do I look to you like an idiot, Vinton? Answer me quite frankly; do I?”

“No,” laughed Dan. “But you know there are quite a few fellows who do belong to Oxford.”

“Sore-heads,” responded Loring promptly. “Fellows who couldn’t make Cambridge and are trying to hide their despair under a pretense of happiness. Don’t let them fool you, my boy.”

“Still,” said Dan thoughtfully, “Oxford has a billiard table!”

“Huh! A billiard table! Have you ever seen it? Give you my word, Vinton, if you start a ball at one end of that table it’ll roll to the full length of the cloth, go over the edge and drop on the floor! Why, that table was old and decrepit when Adam was a little child! Old Tobey brought it over from England with him, they tell me! And even with their blessed billiard table they can’t win a debate more than once in two years. We let ’em win now and then for fear they’ll get discouraged and quit. Now, don’t you go and link your fate to a one-horse society like Oxford when you’ve got the chance to be a Cambridge fellow. Don’t you do it, Vinton. Cambridge has got the pick of the school. Look at Colton and Capes and Mitchell and Hill and Ridge and--and lots of others!”

“And Loring,” said Dan with a smile.

“And Loring! I wanted to mention him but modesty forbade. Now just as soon as you get your clothes on, Vinton, you run over--No, by Jove, I won’t trust you! A fellow who can even contemplate associating with Oxford can’t be trusted to look after himself. You wait for me and I’ll take you over to my room and guard the door while you write your acceptance!”

“To Oxford, you mean?”

“To Ox--” Loring looked terribly pained and glanced nervously about them. “Please don’t say those things even in fun,” he begged. “Someone might hear you and think you were in earnest!”

“All right,” answered Dan, “I’ll wait for you. And meanwhile I’ll think it over and reach a decision.” Loring grinned and slapped him on the back.

“The decision is already decisioned, my boy,” he laughed. “I’ve attended to that. All you’ve got to do is to write what I tell you to! Don’t move from where you are.”

As strict obedience would have necessitated his going to Loring’s room in his bath-robe, Dan ventured to disobey. After they were both dressed they went across to Dudley and Loring led the way along to one of the first floor rooms, Number 7.

“You’ve never honored my humble roof before, have you?” asked Loring as he ushered Dan into a very comfortably furnished room. “Sorry Tom isn’t here. You know him, though, don’t you?”

“Tom who?” asked Dan.

“Tom Dyer. He’s my room-mate. Plays right half, you know.”

“No, I’ve never met him.”

“Well, you must. He’s a good sort.” Then Loring’s face grew suddenly sad and he shook his head. “There’s only one thing wrong with Tom,” he said dejectedly. “He’s an Oxford fellow. But it wasn’t really his fault, Vinton, and you must try not to hold it against him. They got hold of him when he was young and innocent and regularly kidnapped him. We don’t speak of it here, and I only mentioned it so that you might avoid the subject. He’s dreadfully touchy about it.”

Dan promised gravely not to allude to the matter in Dyer’s presence and Loring brightened again.

“That’s right, find a decent chair,” he said. “Now, let’s see. Here’s paper and an envelope. Can you write with a fountain pen? I prefer them myself, they’re so nice and messy. This is a non-leakable one, you know, so look out for the ink. I’ve worn out two hunks of pumice stone already this fall. And here’s a stamp. It seems to have been at one time attached to a letter and subsequently rescued. But I’ve got some paste somewhere.”

“But what shall I say?” asked Dan.

“Eh? Oh, anything you like; there’s no fixed form for accepting, you know. You might just say that you accept with pleasure the invitation of Cambridge Debating Society, and let it go at that. I forget just what I wrote, but it was short and sweet. If you like you might add: ‘P. S. Down with Oxford,’ but I don’t know that it is necessary. That’s the ticket. Now here’s your envelope.”

“Thanks. Let’s see, Loring, is there one or two f’s in Oxford?”

“Here! What are you doing!” yelled the other. “Please don’t joke; my nerves aren’t what they were when I was young. That’s all right. Now we’ll just drop this into the box in front of Oxford, and then you can eat your supper with a clear conscience. My boy, when I think of what you escaped--” Words appeared to fail him. “But it’s all right now, it’s all right now. Bear up, Vinton.”

Dan was bearing up beautifully, and continued to do so for half an hour longer while they discussed the subject uppermost in all minds, football.

“I’m in a blue funk over the Brewer game,” said Loring. “You needn’t mention it, but it’s a fact just the same. We’re going to get beaten as sure as shooting!”

“Why?” asked Dan.

“Because we aren’t up to the game, my boy. We are a lot of pretty ragged players as yet and it’ll take another week to work us around. I know, for I’ve been two years with the team. I know just what will happen. We’ll go down there and try a forward pass or two, and maybe an on-side kick, and they won’t come off right and Payson will put us back at the old style playing and we’ll just run up against a stone wall. He hasn’t any faith in this open play, Vinton, and just as soon as it begins to go against us he will get scared. He makes believe that he’s reconciled to the new rules, but he isn’t, not a bit. If he had his way they’d bring back the old rules. You see, Payson knows where he is when it comes to the old style of mass-playing, and he isn’t the sort of a fellow to learn new tricks very readily. And just as sure--”

“But you’ll be running the team Saturday,” said Dan. “You can pull off whatever plays you like.”

“I’m not going to start the game,” answered Loring. “Payson is afraid I’ll go fine, I guess. He’s going to put in Clapp. If Clapp does all right I’ll be out altogether.”

“That’s a shame,” cried Dan.

“Oh, I don’t mind. Except that I’d like to get a crack at Brewer. And I’d like to be able to run the team the way I wanted to for the first half. I’d keep them guessing, I promise you. Clapp will do as he’s told, and if Payson says try a forward pass and stop it if it doesn’t go he will do just that. Brewer always has a fierce old team; her men are like oxen, Vinton.”

“How old are the fellows?”

“The Brewer chaps? Well, they’re supposed to be under twenty-one; that’s the age limit in our agreement with them. But--” Loring smiled--“last year they had fellows in the line that’ll never see twenty-six again.”

“Gee! I don’t see how we can be expected to do much against them, then,” said Dan.

“We couldn’t if we weren’t in lots better training. They’re usually slow and we get the jump on them right along, and that helps. They can’t run much, as a rule, and they can’t punt. It’s in the old-style hammer-and-tongs football that Brewer shows up best. Her line’s a hard proposition. Besides, they’re a rough lot and slug like anything.”

“I wish I were going to play,” said Dan regretfully.

“You’re better out of it,” answered Loring. “You and I are too light to do much against those chaps. I guess, between you and me, that that’s one reason Payson’s keeping me out. He’s afraid some of those chaps will break me in half. I played for awhile last year and got a nasty ankle out of it. Someone deliberately twisted it in a pile-up.”

“Brutes!” growled Dan.

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Loring. “I’ve talked with some of them and I don’t believe they’re so bad. The trouble is that they don’t know the difference between clean playing and dirty. This fellow, McMannis, who coaches them is a professional and he’s all for winning; he’s afraid he will lose his job, you see, if he doesn’t turn out winning teams. I guess they pay him a pretty tidy little sum. You’d better come along and see the game, Vinton.”

“I will,” Dan replied. “How do you get there?”

“Train or trolley. Half an hour by train and a little over an hour by trolley. We usually go by trolley. It’s more fun and there’s lots to see. We have a car to ourselves, you know. Maybe Payson will let you come along if you ask him. He had you on the First the other day and that ought to give you the right to go along if you pay your own fare. Still, he turned a lot of fellows down last year who wanted to go with the team. But you’d better ask him.”

“I guess I will,” Dan said. “Have you fellows got any new plays for Brewer?”

“Nothing much. There’s a fake forward pass that may turn the trick, but it’s risky. No, it’ll be the same old thing, I guess, smash and run, run and smash. I think we’ll be able to work their ends this year.”

“I hope we win,” muttered Dan.

“So do I, but I don’t expect it. If they can work forward passes on us they’ll have us running. We haven’t learned how to spoil those things yet, Vinton.”

“If they’re well done they’re pretty hard to spoil,” said Dan thoughtfully. “I know the forward pass opens up the play a good deal and all that sort of thing, but I don’t care an awful lot for it, Loring.”

“Well, it’s a good idea in a way, but there’s a beastly lot of luck about it. It gives a weaker team a mighty good chance to score on a stronger one, I think. And that doesn’t seem right, does it? Say, what time is it getting to be? I’m hungry!”

“It’s almost six,” said Dan, looking at his watch. “I’ve stayed an awful long time, and maybe you wanted to do something.”

“Don’t you believe it! I’m glad you did stay. I wanted to talk. The fact is, Vinton, I’ve got the jumps to-day. The first thing I know Andy will have me laid off for going fine. Let’s go over and eat.”

Loring attended personally to the posting of Dan’s letter of acceptance and then they entered Commons together, and those Oxford fellows who saw realized that Dan Vinton had escaped them.

“You come around again and see me,” said Loring as they parted at the door. “And I want to take you up to the Society room and introduce you when you get your membership. Don’t forget.”

Dan thanked him and made his way to the second training table and to the “Society of the Goats.”