CHAPTER XVI

ABSENT FROM CHAPEL

There was no opportunity to tell Arnold of the wonderful news until the next morning after breakfast. Then he pulled his chum upstairs to Number 12 and recounted the whole stupendous happening to him. Arnold was delighted, but not as delighted as Toby thought he should have been. And the reason appeared a minute later when Arnold said doubtfully:

“I think myself you’ve got the making of a mighty good goal, T. Tucker, only it seems to me you’ll need a good deal more practice than you can get this year. I wouldn’t be too set up over what Loring says. Of course he was right about your being a good one and all that, but Loring is sort of――of visionary, I guess. I mean――”

“I don’t think he’s visionary at all,” replied Toby indignantly. “He talks mighty practical horse-sense, Arn. How do you mean, visionary?”

“Well, he’s great for what he calls ‘tactical playing’: believes in planning everything out beforehand and all that. Any one knows that you can’t plan a hockey game, because you can’t tell beforehand what’s going to develop. Frank says, too, that Loring wasn’t much of a player when he was in college. He never made the varsity seven, anyway. He was just substitute one year, or maybe two.”

“He was football captain, though,” defended Toby.

“I know that, but being football captain doesn’t make you a good hockey coach, does it?”

“Maybe he was too busy to make the hockey team. If a fellow is captain of the football team he wouldn’t have much time for other things, it seems to me. And he was captain of his hockey team here at Yardley, because he told me so.”

“Oh, well, they didn’t play hockey then as they do now. The game’s just about twice as far advanced as it was then. I guess that’s the trouble with Loring. He’s still trying to teach the old-style game. Frank says――”

“What the dickens does Frank know about it?” asked Toby, a trifle impatiently.

“Well, he knows more about it than you do, doesn’t he? Anyway, all I’m trying to tell you is that Loring may have promised more than――than he can deliver. When he tells you that by practicing hard and all that you can make yourself a better goal-tend than Henry he’s stretching things a bit. He wanted to say something nice, I guess. Or maybe he wanted to make you work harder. Frank says Loring wasn’t asked up here to coach the seven this year. He just came. He coached last year and we got licked to a frazzle. Crowell wanted some one else, but there didn’t seem to be any one, and Loring offered to come――”

“I think he’s a mighty good coach,” said Toby warmly, “no matter what Frank Lamson or any other fellow says. And I don’t see that Frank is in position to know more about it than I am, for that matter, Arn.”

“You won’t deny that he’s had more hockey experience, I suppose?”

“No, but――” Toby stopped. He had almost said that Frank’s experiences hadn’t done him an awful lot of good. Instead; “But I don’t think that having played last year makes a――a critic of him. Maybe it wasn’t Mr. Loring’s fault that we lost to Broadwood last year. A coach can’t turn out a winning team unless he has the material.”

“Our material was all right. It was just as good as this year’s, every bit. Loring’s a back-number, that’s all. Frank was saying the other day that if Crowell had got hold――”

“Oh, bother what Frank says!” interrupted Toby, peevishly. “You make me tired, always quoting Frank Lamson, Arn. You’d think he was the only fellow in school! He isn’t any better judge of Mr. Loring’s coaching than you or me.”

Arnold flushed. “How long,” he asked, “since you sat yourself up as a hockey authority?”

“I don’t. But I know as much hockey as Frank Lamson does right this minute, even if he has played the game longer.”

“Yes, you do! You’re getting a swelled head, Toby, that’s the matter with you. You think that just because Loring patted you on the head and told you you were a great little goal-tend that you know it all. When fellows who have played the game for years say that Loring’s no good as a coach――”

“No one does say so but Lamson! And what he says is piffle. And you can tell him I said so, if you like!”

“It wouldn’t bother him a bit,” answered Arnold angrily. “But if you can’t speak decently of folks you’d better keep your mouth shut, Toby. Frank’s a friend of mine, and a friend of yours, too, and――”

Toby laughed loudly. “A friend of mine, is he? That’s a good one!”

“He certainly is! Has he ever done anything that wasn’t friendly?”

“Has he ever done anything that was?”

“Lots!”

“Piffle!”

“Oh, all right. Have it your way, Mr. Smart Aleck! Frank――”

“You ask Frank Lamson if he was a friend of mine last Friday night,” challenged Toby hotly. “If I had half a dozen friends like him I’d be――be in the poor house!”

“What do you mean by that? What did Frank do? Go on and tell me now! You’ve hinted. Out with it.”

But Toby, suddenly sobered, shook his head. “Never mind,” he muttered. “Ask him if you want to know. I guess he wouldn’t tell, though.” He laughed mirthlessly.

“That’s a cowardly trick,” said Arnold in disgust. “You make an accusation against a fellow and then refuse to follow it up. Whether Frank is a friend of yours or not, you certainly aren’t a friend to him. And you aren’t a friend to me, either, when you talk like that. If you weren’t a cad you’d come out and say what you mean.”

“Ask him,” said Toby doggedly.

“I will ask him!” blazed Arnold. “And if I was Frank I’d――I’d――”

“What?” demanded Toby. “Come back and steal my clothes this time, I suppose! You tell him I’m putting my money in the bank now where he can’t get it!”

“What! Look here, Toby Tucker, do you mean to tell me that you’re accusing Frank of stealing that money of yours? Are you plumb crazy?”

“No, it’s you who are crazy! You think so much of Frank that you believe anything he tells you. He couldn’t do anything wrong, according to your idea. Well, ask him where he got the quarter with the initials cut in it! And ask him where he got the dollar bill with the court-plaster on it! He thinks, because I haven’t said anything, that I don’t know. Well, I do know. I’ve got all the proof I need, and if I told fellows what I know――”

“Look here, Toby!” cried Arnold sternly. “Cut that out!”

“Oh, of course! Anything that Lamson does――”

“Leave Frank alone! Look after your own――your own conduct! Accusing a fellow like Frank of stealing! I never heard anything so rotten! Or so silly, either! Cut it out, I tell you!”

“Sure! Maybe you’d like me to send him a pocket-book to keep it in? He swiped my money and I’m not to speak of it for fear I might hurt his feelings!” Toby laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one!”

Arnold strode to the door, with blazing eyes, and threw it wide open. “Get out of here, Toby,” he demanded, “and stay out until you can talk decently of my friends. You needn’t come back until you apologize. I mean it!”

Toby’s heart sank for an instant, but a smarting sense of injury forced a laugh and a sneer to his lips. “One excuse is as good as another to get rid of me, Arn. I’ve known all along that you were――were tired of me. Frank Lamson――”

“Let Frank alone! I’ve told you once! Get out or I’ll put you out!”

“Try it!” dared Toby. “I wish you would!” Then, as Arnold only stood motionless with his hand on the door-knob, Toby shrugged his shoulders and walked past him. On the threshold he paused for a final fling. “I’m glad to go,” he said hotly. “I don’t care to stay where I’m not wanted. But if you wait for me to apologize you’ll wait until your hair’s gray, Arnold Deering. And, considering the way you love him and stand up for him, I think the least Lamson can do is to divvy up with you on that money he stole. Or perhaps he has already?”

The door, with Arnold’s weight against it, thrust Toby into the corridor and closed with a crash. Toby laughed ironically and, his head high and a disk of red in each cheek, climbed the stairs to the hall above. In his room, he moved about for several minutes, picking things up and laying them down again quite unconsciously. He whistled a gay little tune until he suddenly found himself seated in a chair with his hands in his trousers pockets, his legs sprawled out before him and a horrible sinking feeling inside him. The whistle had stopped and he was staring miserably at the tops of the bare trees outside the window. He was sorry.

Being sorry is a most absorbing occupation. A fellow can spend heaps of time being sorry and never realize it. And that’s just what Toby