Left Tackle Thayer | Page 5

O fortunate youth! Forward, sir! Allow me to conduct you to your apartment!" And, putting his arm through Clint's, he dragged that astonished youth into dormitory.

CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN INNES RECEIVES
"What's that awful noise?" asked Clint startledly, looking up from his book.
It was the evening of the second day of school and Clint and Amy Byrd were preparing lessons at opposite sides of the green-topped table in Number 14 Torrence.
"That," replied Amy, leaning back until his chair protested and viewing his room-mate under the shade of the drop-light, "is music."
"Music!" Clint listened incredulously. From the next room, by way of opened windows and transoms, came the most lugubrious wails he thought he had ever listened to. "It--it's a fiddle, isn't it?" he demanded.
Amy nodded. "More respectfully, a violin. More correctly a viol-_din._ (The joke is not new.) What you are listening to with such evident delight are the sweet strains of Penny Durkin's violin." Amy looked at the alarm clock which decorated a corner of his chiffonier. "Penny is twelve minutes ahead of time. He's not supposed to play during study-hour, you see, and unless I'm much mistaken he will be so informed before the night is much--"
"_Hey, Penny! Cut it out, old top_!"
From somewhere down the corridor the anguished wail floated, followed an instant later by sounds counterfeiting the howling of an unhappy dog. Threats and pleas mingled.
"Penny! For the love of Mike!"
"Set your watch back, Penny!"
"Shut up, you idiot! Study's not over!"
"Call an officer, please!"
But Pennington Durkin was making too much noise on his instrument to hear the remonstrances at first, and it was not until some impatient neighbour sallied forth and pounded frantically at the portal of Number 13 that the wailing ceased. Then,
"What is it?" asked Durkin mildly.
"It's only ten minutes to nine, Penny. Your clock's fast again. Shut up or we'll kill you!"
"Oh!" said Penny surprisedly. "Are you sure? I set my watch--"
"Oh, forget it! You say that every night," was the wearied response. "How the dickens do you think anyone's going to study with that noise going on?"
"I'm very sorry, really," responded Penny, "If I'd known--"
"You never do know, Penny!" The youth outside strode back to his room and slammed the door and quiet prevailed once more. Amy smiled.
"Poor Penny," he said. "He suffers much in the cause of Art. I refuse to study any more. Close up shop, Clint, and let's talk. Now that you've been with us a whole day, what do you think of us? Do you approve of this institution of learning, old man?"
"I think I'm going to like it," replied Clint soberly.
"I do hope so," murmured Amy anxiously. "Still, any little changes you'd like made--"
"Well, you asked me, didn't you?" laughed Clint. "Besides, how can I help but like it when I am honoured by being roomed with you?"
"Sarcasm!" hissed Amy. "Time's up!" He slammed his book shut, tossed it on a pile at his elbow, yawned and jumped from his chair. "Let's go visiting. What do you say? Come along and I'll interdoodle you to some of our prominent criminals. Find your cap and follow me."
"I wish," said Amy, as they clattered down the stairs in the wake of several other boys who had lingered no longer than they after nine o'clock had struck, "I wish you had made the Fifth Form, Clint."
"So do I," was the reply. "I could have if they'd stretched a point."
"Um; yes," mused the other. "Stretched a point. Now that's something I never could make out, Clint."
"What!"
"Why, how you can stretch a point. The dictionary describes a point as 'that which has position but no magnitude.' Seems to me it must be very difficult to get hold of a thing with no magnitude, and, of course, you'd have to get hold of it to stretch it, wouldn't you? Now, if you said stretch a line or stretch a circle--"
"That's what you'll need if you don't shut up," laughed Clint.
"A circle?"
"No, a stretcher!"
"What a horrible pun," mourned Amy. "Say, suppose we drop in on Jack Innes?"
"Suppose we do," replied Clint cheerfully. "Who is he?"
"Football captain, you ignoramus. Maybe if you don't act fresh and he takes a liking to you he will resign and let you be captain."
"Won't it look--well, sort of funny?" asked Clint doubtfully as they passed along the Bow.
"What? You being captain?"
"No, our going--I mean my going to see him, Won't he think I'm trying to--to swipe?"
"Poppycock! Jack's a particular friend of mine. You don't have to tell him you want a place on the team, do you? Besides, there'll likely be half a dozen others there. Here we are; one flight."
They turned in the first entrance of Hensey and climbed the stairs. Innes's room, like Clint's, faced the stair-well, being also Number 14, and from behind the closed door came a babel