Chapter 10

"Gerund or gerundive?" he began directly, at the same time rising and scanning the front ranks.

"Why, gerund, sir," said P. Lentz instantly.

"What, again?" said The Roman, who then called upon Stover.

Dink arose, watched with some trepidation by the rest; for being in the front row he could receive no signal.

"First paragraph, third word, gerund or gerundive, Stover?"

Dink took a long time, shifting a little as though trying to glance from side to side, and finally named haltingly:

"Gerund, sir."

"Next line, first word, gerund or gerundive? Look in front of you, Stover. Look at me."

Dink purposely called it wrong, likewise the next; thereby completing the mystification of The Roman, who now concentrated his attention on Macnooder and the Tennessee Shad, as being next in order of suspicion. The day ended victoriously.

"He won't live out the week," announced Dink. "There are circles under his eyes already."

"Better quit for a day or two," said the Tennessee Shad.

"Never!"

Now the advantage of Dink's method of signaling was in its absolute naturalness. For the growing boy wiggles his ears as a pup tries his teeth or a young goat hardens his horns. Moreover, as Dink held to his plan of judicious flunking, The Roman's suspicions were completely diverted. For three days more the lover of the gerund and the gerundive sought to localize and detect the sources of information without avail.

Finally on the sixth day The Roman arrived with a briskness that was at once noted and analyzed. P. Lentz was called and translated.

"We will now take up our daily recreation," said The Roman, in a gentle voice. "It has been a matter of pleasure to me--not unmixed with a little surprise, incredulous surprise--to note the sudden affection of certain members of this class for those elusive forms of Latin grammar known as the gerund and the gerundive. I had despaired, in my unbelief I had despaired, of ever satisfactorily impressing their subtle distinctions on certain, shall we say athletic, imaginations. It seems I was wrong. I had not enough faith. I am sorry. It is evident that these Scylla and Charybdis of prosody have no longer any terrors for you, Lentz. Am I right?"

"Yes, sir," said P. Lentz hesitatingly.

"So--so--no terrors? And now, Lentz, take up your book, take it up. Direct your unfailing glance at the first paragraph, page sixty-two. Is it there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pick out the first gerund you see."

P. Lentz, beyond the aid of human help, gazed into the jungle and brought forth a supine.

"Is it possible, Lentz?" said The Roman. "Is it possible? Try once more, but don't guess. Don't guess, Lentz; don't do it."

P. Lentz closed the book and sat down.

"What! A sudden indisposition? Too bad, Lentz, too bad. Now we'll try Lazelle. Lazelle won't fail. Lazelle has not failed for a week."

The Gutter Pup rose in a panic, guessed and fell horribly over an ordinary participle.

"Quite mysterious!" said The Roman, himself once more. "Sudden change of weather. Mead, lend us the assistance of your splendid faculties. What? Unable to rise? Too bad. Dear me--dear me--quite the feeling of home again--quite homelike."

The carnage was terrific, the scythe passed over them with the old-time sweep, laying them low. Once maliciously, when Fatty Harris was on his feet, The Roman asked:

"Top of page, fifth word, gerund or gerundive?"

"Gerund," said Harris instantly.

"Ah, pardon----" said The Roman, bringing into play both eyebrows. "My mistake, Harris, entirely my mistake. Go down to the next paragraph and recognize a gerundive. No? Sit down--gently. Too bad--old methods must make way for new ideas. Too bad, then you did have one chance in two and now, where in the whole wide world will you find a friend to help you? Class is dismissed."

"I told you you couldn't beat The Roman," said the Tennessee Shad.

"I made him change his system, though," said Dink gloriously, "and he never caught me."

"Well, if you have, how are you going to spot the gerund and the gerundive?"

"I don't need to; I've learned 'em," said Dink, laughing.

XVI

The Kennedy House Educational Quick Lunch Institute broke up in wrath a week later when an innocent inquiry of Beekstein's for the passwords revealed the direction of the club's finances.

Meanwhile, true to his resolve, Dink, with the assistance of Finnegan and the Tennessee Shad, had started the fad of souvenir toilet sets; which, like all fads, ran its course the faster because of its high qualities of absurdity and uselessness. Dink's intention of recouping himself by selling his own set of seven colors at a big advance was cut short by a spontaneous protest to the Doctor from the house masters, whose artistic souls were stirred to wrath at the hideous invasion. The subject was then so successfully treated from the pulpit, with all the power of sarcasm that it afforded, that the only distinct artistic movement of New Jersey expired in ridicule.

Dink took this check severely to heart and, of course, beheld in this thwarting of his scheme to dispose of the abhorrent set with honor a fresh demonstration of the implacability of The Roman.

He wandered gloomily from Laloo's and Appleby's to the Jigger Shop; where, after pulling his hat over his eyes, folding his arms inconsolably, he confided his desires of revenge on Doc Macnooder to the sympathetic ears of the guardian of the Jigger.

"Why not get up a contest and offer it as a prize?" said Al.

"Have you seen it?" said Dink, who then did the subject full justice.

Al remained very thoughtful for a long while, running back dreamily through the avenues of the past for some stratagem.

"I remember way back in the winter of '88," he said at last, "there was a slick coot by the name of Chops Van Dyne, who got strapped and hit upon a scheme for decoying the shekels."

"What was that?" said Dink hopefully.

"He got up a guessing contest with a blind prize."

"A what?"

"A blind prize all done up in tissue paper and ribbons, and no one was to know what was in it until it was won. It certainly was amazing the number of suckers that paid a quarter to satisfy their curiosity."

"Well, what was inside?" said Dink at once.

"There you are!" said Al. "Why, nothing, of course--a lemon, perhaps--but the point is, every one just had to know."

"Not a word!" said Dink, springing up triumphantly.

"Mum as the grave," said Al, accepting his handshake.

Dink went romping back like a young spring goat, his busy mind seizing all the ramifications possible from the central theory. He found the Tennessee Shad and communicated the great idea.

"I don't like the guessing part," said the Tennessee Shad.

"Nor I. We must get up a contest."

"A championship."

"Something devilishly original."

"Exactly."

"Well, what?"

"We must think."

The day was passed in fruitless searching but the next morning brought the answer in the following manner: Dink and the Tennessee Shad--as the majority of trained Laurentians--were accustomed to wallow gloriously in bed until the breakfast gong itself. At the first crash they would spring simultaneously forth and race through their dressing for the winning of the stairs. Now this was an art in itself and many records were claimed and disputed. The Tennessee Shad, like most lazy natures, when aroused was capable of extraordinary bursts of speed and was one of the claimants for the authorized record of twenty-six and a fifth seconds from the bed to the door, established by the famous Hickey Hicks who--as has been related--had departed to organize the industries of his country. Of a consequence Stover was invariably still at his collar button when the thin shadow of the Shad glided out of the door. But on the present morning, the shoe laces of the Tennessee Shad snapping in his hand, Dink reached the exit a bare yard in advance. Suddenly he stopped, clasped the Tennessee Shad by the middle and flung him toward the ceiling.

"I have it," he cried. "We'll organize the dressing championship of the school!"

That very evening a poster was distributed among the houses, thus conceived:

FIRST AMATEUR DRESSING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE SCHOOL

under the management of that well-known

Sporting Promoter MR. DINK STOVER

FOR THE BELT OF THE SCHOOL

and

A SEALED MYSTERIOUS PRIZE

Guaranteed to be Worth Over $3.50

Entrance Fee 25c Books Close at 6 P. M.

To-morrow

For Conditions and Details Consult MR. DENNIS DE B. DE B. FINNEGAN, Secretary.

While the announcement was running like quicksilver through the school the souvenir toilet set was encased in cotton, packed in the smallest compass, stowed in a wooden box, which was then sewed up in a gunny sacking. This in turn was wrapped in colored paper, tied with bows of pink ribbon and sealed with blue sealing wax stamped with the crest of the school--VIRTUS SEMPER VIRIDIS. The whole was placed on a table at the legs of which were grouped stands of flags.

By noon the next day one-half of the school had passed around the table, measuring the mysterious package, touching the seals with itching fingers and wanting to know the reason for such secrecy.

"There are reasons," said Stover, in response to all inquiries. "Unusual, mysterious, excellent reasons. We ask no one to enter. We only guarantee that the prize is worth over three dollars and fifty cents. No one is coaxing you. No one will miss you. The entrance list is already crowded. We are quite willing it should be closed. We urge nobody!"

Macnooder came among the first, scratching his head and walking around the prize as a fox about a tainted trap. Stover, watching from the corner of his eye, studiously appeared to discourage him. Macnooder sniffed the air once or twice in an alarmed sort of way, grunted to himself and went off to try to pump Finnegan.

Finally, just before the closing of the entries, he shambled up with evident dissatisfaction and said:

"Here's my quarter. It's for the championship, though, and not on account of any hocus pocus in the box."

"Do I understand?" said Dink instantly, "that if you win you are willing to let the prize go to the second man?"

"What are you making out of this?" said Doc hungrily, disdaining an answer.

The contest, which began the next afternoon with thirty-one entries, owing to certain features unusual to athletic contests, produced such a furor of interest that the limited admissions to the struggle brought soaring prices.

Everything was conducted on lines of exact formality.

Each contestant was required to don upper and lower unmentionables, two socks, two shoes, which were to be completely laced and tied, a dickey--formed by a junction of two cuffs, a collar and one button--one necktie, one pair of trousers and one coat. Each contestant was required satisfactorily to wash and dry both hands and put into his hair a recognizable part.

The contestants were allowed to arrange on the chair their wearing apparel according to their own theories, were permitted to fill the wash basin with water, leaving the comb and towel on either side. In order to prevent the formation of two classes, pajamas were suppressed and each contestant, clothed in a nightshirt, was inducted under the covers and his hair carefully disarranged.

Time was taken from the starting gun to the moment of the arrival of the fully clothed, reasonably washed and apparently brushed candidate at the door. Each time was to be noted and the two lowest scores were to compete in the finals. A time limit of forty-five seconds was imposed, after which the contestant was to be ruled out.

The first heat began with the Triumphant Egghead in the bed for the Dickinson, Mr. Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan on the stop watch, Mr. Dink Stover as master of ceremonies and Mr. Turkey Reiter, Mr. Cheyenne Baxter and Mr. Charlie DeSoto as jurors.

The entries were admitted by all to be the pick of the school; while the champions most favored, were the Tennessee Shad for the Kennedy, Doc Macnooder for the Dickinson and the White Mountain Canary for the Woodhull.

A certain delay took place on the third heat owing to Susie Satterly, of the Davis House, refusing to compete unless there was less publicity, and being peremptorily ruled out on a demand for a screen.

"The next on the program," said Stover, as master of ceremonies, "is the champion of the Dickinson, the celebrated old-clothes man, Doctor Macnooder."

Macnooder gracefully acknowledged the applause which invariably attended his public performances and asked leave to make a speech, which was unanimously rejected.

"Very well, gentlemen," said Macnooder, taking off his coat and standing forth in a sudden blaze of rainbow underwear. "I will simply draw attention to this neat little bit of color that I have the honor to present to your inspection. It is the latest thing out in dainty fancies and I stand ready to fill all orders. It is rather springy, but why fall when you can spring? Don't applaud--you'll wake the baby. It is light, it is warm, it gives a sense of exhilaration to the skin. It endears you to your friends, and not even a Lawrenceville suds-lady would bite a hole in it----"

"If you don't get into bed," said Dink, "I'll rule you out."

Macnooder, thus admonished, hastened to his post, merely remarking on the distinction of his garters and impressionistic socks and the fact that he had incurred great expense to afford his schoolmates an equal opportunity.

"Are you ready?" said Turkey Reiter, for the indignant jury.

"One moment."

Macnooder, in bed, glanced carefully at the preparations without, turned on his side and brought his knees up under his chin.

"All ready?"

"Go!"

With a circular kick, something like the flop of a whale's tail, Macnooder drove the covers from him and sprang into the doubled trousers.

A cheer went up from the spectators.

"Gee, what a dive!"

"Faster, Doc!"

"Wash carefully!"

"Behind the ears!"

"Don't forget the buttons!"

"That's the boy!"

"Come on, Doc, come on!"

"Oh, you Dickinson!"

"Hurray!"

"Time--twenty-seven seconds flat," said Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan. "Best yet. Twenty-seven and four-fifths seconds, next on the list, made by the White Mountain Canary and the Gutter Pup."

"Next contestant," said Dink, in sing-song, "is the champion of the Rouse, Mr. Peanuts Biddle."

But here a difficulty arose.

"Please, sir," said the candidate, who as a freshman was visibly embarrassed at the ordeal before him--"Please, sir, I don't part my hair."

Every eye went to the pompadour, cropped like a scrubbing brush, and recognized the truth of this assertion.

"Please, sir, I don't see why I should have to touch a comb."

A protest broke forth from the other candidates.

"Rats!"

"Penalize him!"

"Why part my hair?"

"I always do that with my fingers when I'm skating down the stairs."

"Why wash till afterward?"

"No favoritism!"

The jury retired to deliberate and announced amid cheers that to equalize matters Mr. Peanuts Biddle would be handicapped two-fifths of a second. The candidate took this ruling very much to heart and withdrew.

The Tennessee Shad, closing the list of entries, slouched up to the starting-line amid great excitement to better the record of Doc Macnooder.

He first inspected the washstand, filling the basin higher than customary and exchanging the stiff face towel for a soft bath towel, which would more quickly absorb the moisture.

Doc Macnooder, who followed these preparations with a hostile eye, protested against this last substitution, but was overruled.

The Tennessee Shad then divested himself of his coat and undergarments amid cries of:

"Oh, you ribs!"

"What do they feed you?"

"Oh, you wish-bones!"

"Oh, you shad-bones!"

Macnooder then claimed that the undershirt was manifestly sewed to the coat. The allegation was investigated and disproved, without in the slightest ruffling the composure of the Tennessee Shad, who continued his calculations while making a toothpick dance through his lips. By means of safety pins, he next fastened the back and one wing of his collar to his coat, so that one motion would clothe his upper half.

"I protest," said Doc Macnooder.

"Denied," said Turkey Reiter, as foreman of the jury.

The Tennessee Shad, donning the nightshirt, carefully unloosened the laces of his low shoes, drew them off and arranged the socks inside of them so as to economize the extra movement.

"The socks aren't his!" said Macnooder. "They're big enough for P. Lentz."

"Proceed," said Turkey Reiter.

The Tennessee Shad then unloosened his belt and the trousers slipped down him as a sailor down a greased pole.

Macnooder once more protested and was squelched.

The Tennessee Shad arranged the voluminous trousers, cast a final glance, placed the toothpick on the table and went under the covers.

"All ready?" said Dink.

"Wait!" With the left hand he clutched the covers, with the right his nightshirt, just back of the neck. "Ready now."

"Go!"

With one motion the Tennessee Shad flung the covers from him, tore off his nightshirt and sprang from the bed like Venus from the waves.

The audience burst into cheers:

"Holy Mike."

"Greased lightning!"

"Oh, you Shad!"

"Gee, right through the pants!"

"Suffering Moses!"

"Look at him stab the shoes!"

"Right into the coat!"

"Go it, Shad!"

"Out for the record!"

"Gee, what a wash!"

"Come on, boy, come on!"

"Now for the part!"

"Hurray!"

"Hurrah!"

"Hurroo!"

"Time--twenty-six and one-fifth seconds," cried the shrill voice of Dennis de Brian de Boru. "Equalizing the world's unchallenged professional, amateur and scholastic record made by the late Hickey Hicks! The champion's belt is now the Tennessee Shad's to have and to hold. According to the program the champion and Doc Macnooder, second-best score, will now run another heat for the mysterious sealed prize, guaranteed to be worth over three dollars and fifty cents!"

Macnooder, adopting the Shad's theories of preparation, made an extraordinary effort and brought his record down to twenty-six and four-fifths seconds. The Tennessee Shad then, according to the plan agreed upon with Stover, purposely broke a shoe-lace and lost the match.

Dink, in a speech full of malice, awarded the mysterious sealed prize to Doc Macnooder, with a request to open it at once.

Now, Macnooder, who had been busy thinking the matter over, had sniffed the pollution in the air and, perceiving a wicked twinkle in the eye of Stover, shifted the ground by carrying off the box despite a storm of protests to his room in the Dickinson, where strategically proving his title to Captain of Industry, he charged ten cents admission to all who clamored to see the clearing up of the mystery.

Having thus provided a substantial consolation against discomfiture and joined twenty other curiosity-seekers to his own fortunes, he opened the box and beheld the prodigal souvenir set. At the same moment Dink stepped forward and presented him with his own former bill for three dollars and seventy-five cents.

* * * * *

That night, after Stover had returned much puffed up with the congratulations of his schoolmates on the outwitting of Macnooder, the Tennessee Shad took him to task from a philosophical point of view.

"Baron Munchausen, a word."

"Lay on."

"You must come down to earth."

"Wherefor?"

"You must occasionally, my boy, just as a matter of safeguarding future ventures, start in and scatter a few truths."

"Pooh!" said Stover, with the memory of cheers. "Any fool can tell the truth."

"Yes, but----"

"It's such a lazy way!"

"Still----"

"Enervating!"

"But----"

"Besides, now they expect something more from me."

"True," said the Tennessee Shad, "but don't you see, Dink, if you do tell the truth no one will believe you."

XVII

_Oh, we'll push her over Or rip the cover-- Too bad for the fellows that fall! They must take their chances Of a bruise or two Who follow that jolly football._

So sang the group on the Kennedy steps, heralding the twilight; and beyond, past the Dickinson, a chorus from the Woodhull defiantly flung back the challenge. For that week the Woodhull would clash with the Kennedy for the championship of the houses.

The football season was drawing to a close, only the final game with Andover remained, a contest awaited with small hopes of victory. For the season had been disastrous for the 'Varsity; several members of the team had been caught in the toils of the octopus examination and, what was worse among the members, ill-feeling existed due to past feuds.

Stover, in the long grueling days of practice, had won the respect of all. Just how favorable an impression he had made he did not himself suspect. He had instinctive quickness and no sense of fear--that was something that had dropped from him forever. It was not that he had to conquer the impulse to flinch, as most boys do; it simply did not exist with him. The sight of a phalanx of bone and muscle starting for his end to sweep him off his feet roused only a sort of combative rage, the true joy of battle. He loved to go plunging into the unbroken front and feel the shock of bodies as he tried for the elusive legs of Flash Condit or Charley DeSoto.

This utter recklessness was indeed his chief fault; he would rather charge interference than fight it off, waiting for others to break it up for him and so make sure of his man.

Gradually, however, through the strenuous weeks, he learned the deeper lessons of football--how to use his courage and the control of his impulses.

"It's a game of brains, youngster, remember that," Mr. Ware would repeat day after day, hauling him out of desperate plunges. "That did no good; better keep on your feet and follow the ball. Above all, study the game."

His first lesson came when, at last being promoted to end on the scrub, he found himself lined up against Tough McCarty, the opposing tackle. Stover thought he saw the intention at once.

"Put me against Tough McCarty, eh?" he said, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. "Want to try out my nerve, eh? I'll show 'em!"

Now McCarty did not relish the situation either; foreseeing as he did the long weeks of strenuous contact with the one boy in the school who was vowed to an abiding vengeance. The fact was that Tough McCarty, who was universally liked for his good nature and sociable inclination, had yielded to the irritation Stover's unceasing enmity had aroused and had come gradually into something of the same attitude of hostility. Also, he saw in the captain's assigning Stover to his end a malicious attempt to secure amusement at his expense.

For all which reasons, when the scrub first lined up against the 'Varsity, the alarum of battle that rode on Stover's pugnacious front was equaled by the intensity of his enemy's coldly-calculating glance.

"Here's where I squash that fly," thought McCarty.

"Here's where I fasten to that big stuff," thought Dink, "and sting him until the last day of the season!"

The first direct clash came when the scrubs were given the ball and Dink came in to aid his tackle box McCarty for the run that was signaled around their end.

Tough made the mistake of estimating Stover simply by his lack of weight, without taking account of the nervous, dynamic energy which was his strength. Consequently, at the snap of the ball, he was taken by surprise by the wild spring that Stover made directly at his throat and, thrown off his balance momentarily by the frenzy of the impact, tripped and went down under the triumphant Dink, who, unmindful of the fact that the play had gone by, remained proudly fixed on the chest of the prostrate tackle.

"Get off," said the muffled voice.

Stover, whose animal instincts were all those of the bulldog, pressed down more firmly.

"Get off of me, you little blockhead," said McCarty growing furious as he heard the jeers of his teammates at his humiliating reversal.