CHAPTER VI

“TUBBY” JONES SURRENDERS

Dan passed his examinations and was admitted to the Third Class, to the very evident disappointment of Tubby. For the first few days, life in 28 Clarke was not altogether peaceful. Study hours were observed from eight to ten in the evenings. After eight no visiting was allowed outside the building except by permission of the instructor in charge and visiting inside the building was discouraged. But Tubby, who did very little studying at best, always felt especially sociable between eight o’clock and bedtime and liked to have his friends, notably Jake Hiltz and another boy named Caspar Lowd, visit him. Hiltz and Lowd appeared to find no more necessity for study than Tubby, and for several nights they turned up at Number 28, together or separately. This wasn’t conducive to concentration of thought on Dan’s part, and Dan was desirous of staying in the Third Class now that he had got there. He stood it for four nights and then mildly called Tubby’s attention to the rules. Tubby was indignant.

“We don’t stop you from studying, do we?” he blustered. “Can’t I have my friends in here if I want them? Is this room any more yours than mine?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Dan answered, “but you know mighty well that I can’t keep my mind on my books when you fellows are talking three feet away from me!”

“Well, that isn’t our fault, is it?” asked Tubby with a grin. “You’ll get used to it pretty soon. I can study anywhere.”

Dan wanted to ask him why he didn’t do it, but refrained. Instead--

“I have equal rights here with you, Jones,” he said. “I don’t have fellows here in study hours, and you don’t have to, either.”

“You don’t know anybody,” Tubby retorted.

“And if I did I’d have some consideration for my room-mate,” Dan replied tartly.

“Is that so? Well, maybe you think you can keep my friends out of here. Do you?”

“Yes,” answered Dan shortly. “I do. And I’m going to.”

“How?” shouted Tubby angrily. Dan shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll have to go to Mr. Frye.” (Mr. Frye, instructor in physics, lived on the first floor and was in charge of the dormitory.) Tubby sputtered with indignation.

“I’d do that!” he cried. “I’d go and act the baby! You do and you’ll see what the fellows think of you!”

“Who? Hiltz and Lowd, do you mean? I guess I can stand having them think what they like.”

“Yes, and other fellows, too! They’d hear about it!”

“Yes, I guess you’d see to that,” answered Dan.

“Of course I would,” Tubby blustered, “if you carried tales to Noah.” Mr. Frye’s first name was Noah, and by that name was he usually known.

“I don’t like carrying tales any more than you do,” Dan replied, “but I intend to study in the evening, and I can’t do that if you have your friends in here.”

“That’s just what I am going to do,” said Tubby. “There isn’t any rule, anyhow, against visiting in study hours.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to do it often. Besides, there is a rule against visiting outside the building, and that’s what Hiltz and Lowd are doing.”

“They get permission, of course!”

“Oh, come now, Jones! You know Hiltz doesn’t get permission every night. They wouldn’t give it to him four nights running.”

“Well, that’s not my affair,” growled Tubby. “He comes and I have a right to let him in.”

Dan was silent a moment. Then--

“I tell you what I’ll do, Jones,” he said. “You let me study until nine and I’ll let you give house-parties from nine until ten. How does that suit you?”

“I’ll do as I like,” answered Tubby ungraciously.

“Then I’ll do as I like,” said Dan. “And if you have fellows up here to-morrow night between eight and nine I’ll go to Frye and tell him I can’t study.”

“Yah!” said Tubby.

Before this controversy, however, they had fallen out regarding the airing of the room at night. Dan was for having the window on his side of the room wide open, while Tubby declared that it was more fresh air than his constitution would stand.

“I had grippe last winter,” he said. “And I’m susceptible to cold; the doctor said so.”

“I don’t want you to catch cold,” said Dan, “but I can’t sleep with the room closed up tight. I’ll get a screen and you can put it around the head of your bed.”

“Don’t want a screen,” Tubby growled. “I don’t mind having your window open a little, say two or three inches, but I can’t stand a draft, and--”

“If you had more fresh air,” interrupted Dan impatiently, “you’d be a lot better and wouldn’t look so much like the other side of a fried egg!”

That, of course, didn’t help matters much, for Tubby got very red in the face and fumed and sputtered--very much, as Dan reflected, like the egg in the pan--and for the rest of the day the two boys didn’t speak to each other. This didn’t bother Dan much, for he had never found Tubby’s conversation very interesting. It was probably much more of a hardship for Tubby, for that youth was very fond of talking and seemed never happier than when well launched in a scathing criticism of someone or some thing. That night Dan pushed his window half-way up from the bottom and half-way down from the top. Then he put out the light. Just as he was dropping off to sleep he heard Tubby’s bed creak and Tubby’s bare feet on the floor. Then the window was closed very softly. Dan grinned and waited until Tubby was safely in bed again. Then he jumped up and slammed the window up from the bottom as far as it would go. He returned to bed and waited. Tubby got up again, this time walking into a corner of the study table and emitting a groan of pain. Dan pulled the clothes over his face and chuckled. When Tubby was once more between the sheets Dan again opened the window. After that he laid awake for some time, waiting for a continuance of the contest, but nothing happened and finally he fell asleep. But when he awoke in the morning the room was close and warm and every window was tightly shut. Only the transom into the hall was open. Tubby was smiling triumphantly. Dan said nothing.

Gymnasium work came at half-past eleven and lasted until half-past twelve four days in the week. To-day, however, Dan’s class didn’t meet and so after a mathematics recitation at half-past ten he had two hours before dinner time. He resolved to use a portion of the time in the interests of hygiene. So he set out for the village in search of a hardware store. He found the store, but not what he wanted to purchase. He was told, however, that he could get it in Greenburg, across the river. So he found the bridge and had soon covered the quarter of a mile which lay between it and the business part of Greenburg. The town proved to be quite a busy one and Dan found lots to interest him, especially in the store windows. After he had made his purchase in the hardware store he gave himself up to a veritable orgy of shopping. He bought pencils and blue-books and tablets in a stationery store, picture postcards and a glass of root-beer in a druggist’s, a dark blue necktie in a haberdasher’s and a box of candy at a confectionery store. Then he looked at his watch and discovered that he had barely time in which to reach school before dinner. He did it, arriving at Oxford much out of breath, just as the hands of the big clock in the stone tower pointed to four minutes of one. Later he made the discovery that luncheon was the one meal of the day at which tardiness was permitted, the doors of commons remaining open until a quarter to two.

Tubby seemed to have recovered from his ill-humor and the dove of peace perched itself in Number 28 Clarke. But when bedtime came the dove fled precipitately, and probably out the window. For Dan’s last act was to raise the lower sash and pull down the upper one. Then he produced a small chain such as are used for dog leashes and tossed one end of it over the tops of the sashes, bringing it back into the room underneath. Where the ends came together he made them fast with a small padlock. During this procedure Tubby, raised on his elbow in bed, watched silently. Then Dan put out the light and crept between the sheets. He hadn’t dared to so much as glance at Tubby for fear the expression on that youth’s face would move him to laughter. But after he had got the bed-clothes well over his head Dan chuckled to his heart’s content. There was no necessity for staying awake, for Tubby might lower the sashes or raise them to his heart’s content; whether up or down they must stay together.

The next morning Tubby was inclined to be distant, and his only conversational efforts were sniffs and snuffles designed to appraise Dan that he had caught cold through exposure to the night air. But Tubby’s cold didn’t last beyond breakfast.

For two more nights Dan used his chain and padlock. The third night he left it off and opened the window only a foot at the top and a like distance at the bottom. When he awoke in the morning it was just as he had arranged it. Tubby had given up the struggle. And Dan won out in the other affair as well, for, in spite of Tubby’s pretended disdain for his room-mate’s ultimatum he was pretty certain that Dan would do as he said he would, and it was part of Tubby’s philosophy never to present himself to the notice of the instructors. So thereafter Hiltz and Lowd, or (very occasionally) someone else, paid their visits to 28 after nine o’clock.

To Dan’s surprise these victories, instead of antagonizing Tubby the more, seemed rather to increase his respect and liking for his room-mate. Dan didn’t for one moment flatter himself that Tubby was fond of him, for it seemed doubtful if Tubby was capable at that period of being fond of anyone save himself; and Dan preferred that he shouldn’t be. For Dan’s sentiments toward Tubby were a mixture of tolerance and good-natured contempt, and a liking on Tubby’s part would have been embarrassing. But they got on pretty well together after these first skirmishes. Dan realized that Tubby’s companionship was better than none. For so far, and Dan had been at Yardley six whole days, he had made no friends and had but three or four acquaintances. His preconceived ideas of Eastern boarding-school life were getting some hard knocks.