The class hockey teams were hard at it by now, for the weather had settled down to a fine imitation of an old-fashioned winter. The baseball candidates and the track and field fellows were, perhaps, not over-enthusiastic about it, and those who played golf made derogatory remarks anent it, but some seventy boys who swung hockey sticks each afternoon asked nothing better. The river was frozen five inches deep and provided even better ice than the first team had on shore. Two rinks were established opposite the boat house and on those the four class teams skated and slashed and shouted every afternoon in preparation for the three or four games which would later decide the school championship. So far snow had been scarce, but what had fallen still lay, crusted and glittering. Indoors the track athletes were awaking from their hibernation and beginning the early drudgery that was to prepare them for outdoor work. Even baseball was talked, although indoor practice for that did not begin for another three weeks. January and February, for those who find no outdoor interests, are dull months at school, and Toby was very thankful that he had gone in for hockey.

Business was none too good just now. It is hard to get one’s clothes soiled when snow covers the world or when one doesn’t get out of doors often. Of course one would suppose that weather or time of year would have no effect on the business of pressing trousers and coats, but it seemed to, and Toby’s trade was almost at a stand-still toward the beginning of February. When Temple came around to solicit a reinsertion of Toby’s modest advertisement in The Scholiast, the school monthly, Toby was of two minds, whether to withdraw his card or make it larger. In the end he decided to offer special prices for February, and Billy Temple, sitting on the edge of the bed, wrote out the advertisement.

CLOTHES CLEANED AND PRESSED

Special Reductions for February

Overcoats in Proportion

My Work Is Equal to the Best

Give Me a Trial
Get Your Wardrobe in Order Now for Spring

T. TUCKER, 22 WHITSON HALL

Lack of trade didn’t worry Toby as much as it would have had he not won that scholarship, but he was glad when, that same evening, young Lingard knocked apologetically and presented himself and four articles of apparel to be cleaned and pressed. There was the same suit that Toby had toilsomely freed from its adornment of green paint, and an extra pair of trousers. This time the suit was spattered with some red-brown stuff, the nature of which Tommy Lingard was at a loss, or pretended to be at a loss, to explain. Toby frowned over it and finally said it looked like iron rust, but Lingard expressed doubts.

“Well, I dare say it will come out,” said Toby. “Most everything does except acid. Fellows ruin their things at chemistry and then wonder why I don’t get the spots out of them. I’ll have these ready to-morrow evening. By the way, Lingard, you never paid me for the last job, you know.”

“Didn’t I really?” The boy’s voice expressed the greatest surprise, but Toby wasn’t fooled. “H-how much was it?”

“Seventy-five,” answered Toby, referring to his memorandum book.

“I’m sorry, really.” Lingard searched his pockets and finally produced a crumpled dollar bill from some recess, and Toby tried to dig up a quarter in change. But sixteen cents was the best he could do, and he was on the point of suggesting that the quarter be applied on the new account when he remembered the hockey fund. He crossed to the bureau and pulled the little box from its concealment and abstracted two dimes and a nickel. Lingard was deeply interested in the gas-stove when Toby came back—Toby had just finished pressing a pair of his own trousers—and didn’t turn around until Toby spoke.

“Here you are, Lingard. Twenty-five cents. Much obliged. Will you come for these or shall I leave them in your room?”

“I’ll come and get them, thanks, Tucker. To-morrow evening, you said?”

“Yes, any time after nine. Good-night.”

Lingard went off and Toby, after draping the garments on a hanger, turned out his light and padded downstairs to see Arnold. It was against the rules to use any cleansing fluid in the buildings after dark and so Toby’s cleansing operations had to be done in the daytime. He found Arnold and Homer playing host to Fanning and Halliday. There was a box of biscuits open on the window-seat and Homer had fashioned a pitcherful of orange-colored liquid which the fellows were drinking from glasses and tooth-mugs. Homer kept an assortment of bottled fruit-juices and could be relied on to produce a sweet and sickening beverage at a moment’s notice. Toby declined the mugful of “Wilkins’ Orange Nectar” offered him, but helped himself to the biscuits and made himself as comfortable as he could on Arnold’s bed.

“Don’t get the crumbs in there, for the love of lemons,” warned Arnold. “I never could sleep comfortably on cracker crumbs.”

Homer chuckled. “Say, Arn, remember the time we filled Garfield’s bed with crackers? Gee, that was a riot!”

“What was it?” prompted Ted Halliday, holding out his glass for more “nectar.”

“Why, Garfield got fresh one time,” recounted Arnold, “and came in here when we were out and pied the room. It was an awful mess when I got back. He had turned all the pictures around, and stuffed a suit of Homer’s clothes with pillows and put it in my bed, and—oh, just raised Cain generally. He thought he was awfully funny, I guess. You remember him, Fan?”

Fanning nodded, but Halliday looked blank.

“A big, round-faced fellow,” reminded Homer. “Roomed in 14 last year, with Dickerman. Played guard on the second for awhile.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. Say, what became of him, anyway? He isn’t here this year, is he?”

“No, he didn’t come back. Went to Andover or somewhere up that way,” answered Arnold. “Well, anyway, Homer and I decided we’d get even with him. Homer’s folks had just sent a box and there was about a half a dozen boxes of soda crackers in it. So we emptied the lot in Garfield’s bed. Sort of spread them around neatly and then tidied everything up again so you wouldn’t ever think it had been touched. But afterwards we thought that maybe he would just pick the crackers out and eat them. So we went over and visited him that evening about nine and sat on his bed. The way—”

“I thought every time we moved he’d hear the silly things go crunch!” laughed Homer. “But he didn’t. We made an awful lot of noise—”

“He wanted us to sit in chairs,” chuckled Arnold, “but we told him we preferred the bed. Said we were dead tired and wanted to lean back. After a bit we got to rough-housing, just to finish the job nicely, and we had it all over the bed, the crackers crunching finely. We had to shout and howl so he wouldn’t hear them. He said we were a couple of silly idiots and if we didn’t cut it out ‘Muscles’ would hear the row and be up. So we let up after we’d rolled all over the bed and said good-night to him and hoped he’d have a nice, restful sleep, and went home.”

“Did he?” laughed Fanning.

“Like anything! After his light went out Homer and I opened the door and listened. We didn’t have to listen long, though. We heard him mutter something and then there was a roar and he landed out in the middle of the room, I guess. We saw the light go on again and—well, we thought we’d better go to bed about then. Which we did, locking the door very, very carefully first. He almost broke it in before Mr. Bendix came bounding upstairs to see what the trouble was!”

“Yes,” added Homer, “and the low-life told ‘Muscles’ about it and showed him the bed! Garfield was one of those chaps who just love a joke—as long as it isn’t on him!”

“What did ‘Muscles’ do?” asked Halliday delightedly.

“Not a thing. Told Garfield to shake his sheets out and go to bed. But he wouldn’t speak to either of us for days and days; Garfield, I mean. Seemed real peeved at us!”

“I’ll bet worse things than that have happened to him at Andover, or wherever he is,” chuckled Fanning. “It doesn’t take long to find out a fellow who can’t stand a joke, and then every one has a whack at him. Garfield was a pill, anyway. I played left half that year on the scrub, and Garfield was always funking. Just let some one kick him in the shins and he was ready to quit. Talking about shins, fellows, I wish you’d see the peach that I’m wearing just now. Every time any fellow swings his stick it gets my left shin. I’ve got a regular map on it, with every state a different color. I’m thinking of getting a pair of leg-guards like Tucker wears. Those shin pads they give us aren’t any good. Casement doesn’t even know they’re there when he gets to slashing. I never saw a chap who could bang around with his stick the way he can, and get away with it. Some day though, he will make me lose my temper, and when he does he’s going to get something to remember.”

“Tut, tut,” said Halliday, soothingly. “What’s a crack on the shin between friends? Save your revenge, Fan, and work it off on Broadwood.”

“Yes, you’ll have Tony Spaulding to fight then,” said Arnold.

“Is he such a wonder?” asked Fanning.

“You saw him last year, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think he was anything remarkable. He—”

“He scored six of their ten goals,” said Arnold. “That’s doing fairly well, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I dare say, but Henry let a lot of shots get by him that never ought to have been caged. Say, when’s Hen coming back? Lamson’s an awful frost as a goal-tend.”

“About two weeks from now, he thinks,” replied Halliday. “He flunked in German and got about a dozen conditions in other things.”

“Only a dozen?” asked Homer. “Well, if it takes him as long to make up as it’s going to take me he will be back about June.”

“I wish he was back now,” said Fanning, gloomily. “Warren Hall won’t do a thing to us to-morrow. Those chaps were born with hockey sticks in their mouths, I guess.”

“Frank hasn’t made a bad showing,” said Arnold. “I don’t say he’s as good as Henry, but I think he’s a pretty fair goal-tend.”

“Lamson couldn’t stop a medicine-ball if you rolled it at him,” jeered Fanning. “Maybe he might if he’d stick around the net, but he thinks he has to skate out and play point most of the time. Loring told him yesterday that if he didn’t stay where he could touch the net all the time he’d have him tied to it.”

“You’re prejudiced, I guess,” said Arnold warmly. “Other fellows think Frank’s doing mighty well. I’ve heard lots of them say so, too. He hasn’t had the experience that Henry’s had, of course, but he certainly made some nice stops to-day.”

“All right, I don’t know anything about it,” agreed Fanning. “But I do know that Warren Hall will shoot him so full of holes to-morrow that he will look like a blooming sieve. Why, hang it, Arn, Toby Tucker here can play goal better than Lamson right now! And Tucker never played hockey until this winter!”

“Neither did Frank—much,” defended Arnold. “He played about a month on the second last year—”

“He may get the hang of it,” interposed Ted Halliday, entering the discussion, “but I think you’re dead wrong, Arn, when you say he can play goal. To my mind he was never meant for a goal-tend. He’d make a much better cover point, because he’s a good stick-handler and skates well and is heavy enough to keep his feet when he’s checked. But he’s dead slow at the net. If Henry doesn’t get back I’ll wager you anything you like that Tucker plays goal against Broadwood.”

“Right!” agreed Fanning. Arnold shrugged his shoulders. Toby sat up suddenly and almost choked on the cracker he was eating.

“Me!” he ejaculated.

“Surest thing you know,” asserted Fanning. “If Henry doesn’t work off his conditions—”

“There’s only you and Lamson,” interrupted Halliday. “Unless they swipe some fellow from the second, and I don’t know who he’d be. You’re a heap better than Warren, aren’t you?”

“I—I suppose I’m a little better,” allowed Toby.

“Yes, and Warren’s a lot better than that new fellow, Guild. All you’ll have to do is to beat out Lamson, and if you can’t do that I hope you choke.” This was from Fanning. Arnold laughed.

“I’d be glad to see Toby get it,” he said, “but I don’t believe Lamson is as bad as you fellows think he is. Anyway, Crowell is satisfied with him.”

“Crowell doesn’t let you know whether he’s satisfied or dissatisfied,” said Halliday. “Still, I don’t care who plays goal for us as long as he stops Broadwood from scoring. That’s the main thing, I guess. I’ve got to trot. Coming along, Fan? No more juice of the sun-kissed orange, thanks, Homer. I’m full of it now. I’ll bet I’ve got enough different kinds of chemicals inside me to stock a laboratory!”

“You have not!” denied Homer indignantly. “That’s pure fruit-juice untouched by the human hand and passed by the board of censors.”

Halliday and Fanning took their departure, laughing, and Toby, so far a very silent member of the party, broached the object of his visit.

“I wish you’d go over to Greenburg with me in the morning, Arn, and help me buy some leg-guards and a pair of gloves. Will you?”

“Of course, if I can. What time?”

“Eleven? You don’t have anything then, do you?”

“Not on Saturday. All right. We won’t take Homer, though. He indulges in too much levity on such solemn occasions.”

“Thanks, but Homer wouldn’t go if he was asked. Homer has given his promise to expunge three conditions between now and the fifteenth day of February, and what Homer promises, that he performs.” His expression of implacable virtue was, however, somewhat marred by a cavernous yawn. “Still, if you really need my advice, Toby—”

“No, thanks, I’m not buying neckties to-morrow.”

With which bon-mot Toby closed the door behind him before Homer could think of a suitable rejoinder.