Left End Edwards Part 21

"Why should he get out?" asked Harry in surprise.

Roy shrugged. "Maybe he won't, but he will if he doesn't get a hunch and buckle down to study. 'Uncle Sim' has got it in for him hard. Some fine day Steve will get an invitation to the Cottage, Josh will tell him a few things, Steve will get lumpy and--good-night! You see if it doesn't turn out that way."

"Why the d.i.c.kens doesn't he study, then?" grumbled Harry. "He's got brains enough."

"Oh, sure, he's got the brains," answered Roy as he held open the door at Torrence, "but he hasn't discovered yet that there's someone else to think of besides Steve. If he doesn't want to do a thing he won't--unless he's made to. Look at the way he played to-day! Just because he felt lumpy he didn't think it was worth while to do anything but sc.r.a.p with that other chap. Folks won't stand for that very long and some day Steve will wake up with a bang!"

"You going over to swim?" asked Harry when they had reached their room.

Roy shook his head gently. "Not this afternoon, I think, thanking you just the same. I'd be afraid Steve would pull me under water and drown me!" Roy chuckled as he seated himself and, thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets, surveyed his shoes smilingly. "Poor old Steve! He's in for a heap of trouble, I guess, before he gets ready to settle down as a useful member of our charming little community."

"Seems to me," said Harry, "about the best thing you do to-day is predict trouble for folks. You're as bad as What's-his-name's raven; you croak."

"The gentleman's name was Poe," returned Roy sweetly. "But perhaps you've never studied American literature."

"I thought Poe was a football hero at Princeton or somewhere," laughed Harry. "What did he ever do for American literature?"

"American history was more in his line," replied Roy. "Football history.

Find your ball and let's go down and pa.s.s. I won't croak a single, solitary croak, old thing."

CHAPTER XVI

MR. DALEY IS OUT

The reason for Steve's ill-temper was the receipt that morning of a letter from his father. Mr. Edwards wrote that he had just been informed by the princ.i.p.al that Steve's work was far from satisfactory. "He tells me," wrote Mr. Edwards, "that your general att.i.tude toward your studies is careless and that in Latin especially you are not keeping up with your cla.s.s. Now I can't be worried by this sort of thing. I give you fair warning that if you don't mend your ways you'll be taken out of school and put to work here in the office, and there won't be any more talk about college. If Mr. Fernald had said you were not able to do the work, that would be another thing, but he distinctly accuses you of not trying and not caring. I suppose the whole amount of the matter is that you're paying too much attention to football. If I get another complaint about you this year I shall write Mr. Fernald to forbid you to play football or any other game until you show that you mean business. If that doesn't bring you around I shall take you out of school. Fair warning, Steve."

Steve knew his father well enough to be certain that he would do just as he threatened, and the future looked particularly dark to him that day.

Of course, if he had plenty of time he could master his Latin--and his Greek, which was troubling him less but was by no means a favourite course--as well as any other study, he told himself. But there was so much to be done! And try as he might, he could never seem to find time enough for study. If he gave up football it would, perhaps, be easy enough, but, he asked himself bitterly, what was the good of going to school and doing nothing but study? What was the good of knowing how to play football if he wasn't to have a chance to use his knowledge? It was all the fault of the faculty. It tried to get too much work out of the fellows in too short a time. But these reflections didn't help his case any. It was up to him to make good with Latin. Otherwise his father would write to Josh, as he threatened, and there'd be no more football.

If he could get through the next month, by which time the football season would be at an end, it would be all right. After that he could give more time to lessons. He might, too, he told himself, give up those swimming lessons. But they came at an hour when it was terribly hard to get a fellow's mind down to study. And, besides, he enjoyed those lessons. The only thing to do was to stay at home in the evenings and keep his nose in his books. Tom didn't have much trouble, he reflected, and why should he? Sometimes he got thoroughly angry with Tom for the ease with which that youth mastered lessons!

To make matters worse, just at that time, there was due the last of the week an original composition in French, designed by Mr. Daley as a test for the cla.s.s. French did not bother Steve much, although this was partly due to the fact that Mr. Daley had been very lenient with him, knowing that he was having trouble in the cla.s.sical courses. But writing an original composition in French was a feat that filled Steve with dismay. What the d.i.c.kens was he to write about? Mr. Daley had announced that the composition must contain not less than twelve hundred words.

That approximated six pages in a blue-book. Steve sighed, frowned, shook his head and finally shrugged his shoulders. After all, there was no use worrying about that yet. There still remained three days for the composition, and the most important thing now was to make a showing in Latin. French could wait. If he didn't find time for the composition--well, Mr. Daley was easy! He'd get by somehow!

So Steve pegged away hard at his Latin for several days and made a very good showing, and Mr. Simkins, who had been contemplating harsh measures, took heart and hoped that further reports to the princ.i.p.al would be unnecessary. But what with Latin and Greek and mathematics and history and English, that French composition was still unwritten when Thursday evening arrived. It had been a hard day on the gridiron and Steve was pretty well f.a.gged out when study hour came. He had told himself for several days that at the last moment he would buckle down and do that composition, but to-night, with a hard lesson in geometry staring him in the face, the thing looked impossible. Across the study table, Tom was diligently digging into Greek, his French composition already finished and ready to be handed in on the morrow. Steve looked over at him enviously and sighed. He hadn't an idea in his head for that composition! After a while, when he had spoiled two good sheets of paper with meaningless scrawls, he pushed back his chair. There was just one course open. He would go down and tell Mr. Daley that he couldn't do it!

After all, "Horace" was a pretty reasonable sort of chap and would probably give him another day or two. In any case, it was impossible to do the thing to-night. He glanced at his watch and found that the time was ten minutes to eight. Tom looked up inquiringly as Steve's chair went back.

"I'm going down to see 'Horace,'" said Steve. "I can't do that French composition, and I'm going to tell him so. If he doesn't like it, he may do the other thing."

Tom made no reply, but he watched his chum thoughtfully until the door had closed behind him. Then he dug frowningly for a moment with the nib of a pen in the blotter and finally shook his head and went back to his book.

When Steve was half-way between the stairwell and Mr. Daley's door, the latter opened and Eric Sawyer came out. Steve was in no mood to-night to pick a quarrel and he pa.s.sed the older fellow with averted eyes, dimly aware of the scowl that greeted him. When he knocked at the instructor's door there was no reply and, after a moment, Steve turned the k.n.o.b and entered. At the outer door Eric had paused and looked back.

Mr. Daley's study was lighted but empty. Satisfying himself on the latter point, Steve turned to go out. Then, reflecting that, since the instructor had left the lights on, he was probably coming right back, he decided to await him. He seated himself in a chair near the big green-topped table. Almost under his hand lay a blue-book, and in idle curiosity Steve leaned forward and looked at it. On the white label in the upper left-hand corner he read: "French IV. Carl W. Upton. Original composition." Steve viewed that blue-book frowningly, envying Upton deeply. Upton, whom he knew by sight, was the sort of fellow who always had his lessons and who was forever being held up by the instructor to the rest of the course as a shining example of diligence. He roomed on the floor above Steve. It was, Steve reflected, just like Upton to get his composition done and hand it in in advance of the others. He wondered what sort of stuff Upton had written, and lifted the blue-book from the table.

"En Revanche!" he read as he turned to the first page. His lip curled.

That was a silly t.i.tle. He dipped into the story. It was something about a French soldier accused of cowardice by an officer. Steve, puzzling through the first page, grudgingly acknowledged that Upton had written pretty good stuff. But his interest soon waned, for some of the words were beyond him, and he idly tossed the book back on the table. He wished, though, that that was his composition and not Upton's. He wondered if Mr. Daley had seen it. Somehow the position of the book, in the geometrical centre of the big writing-pad, suggested that Upton had found the instructor out and had left the book. If he had that book upstairs it wouldn't be hard to copy the composition out in his own hand-writing. It would be a whole lot like stealing, but----

Steve looked fascinatedly at the book for a minute. Then his hand went out and he was once more turning the pages of neat, close writing. Of course, he wouldn't really do a thing like that, but--well, it would solve a mighty big problem! And what a hole that self-sufficient Upton would be in! He couldn't prove that he had left the book in Mr. Daley's study, at least not unless the instructor had seen it there; and somehow Steve was pretty sure he hadn't. Of course a decent chap wouldn't do a trick like that, only--well, it would certainly be easy enough!

Upstairs, Tom was still deep in his Greek, but he looked up as Steve came in. "Find him?" he asked.

Steve shook his head. "No, he was out. I--I'll go down again." Instead of reseating himself at the table, he fidgetted aimlessly about the room, looked out the window, sat down on the seat, got up again, went to the closet, returned to the table and stood looking down on Tom with a frown. Tom closed his book with a sigh of relief and met his chum's gaze.

"Going to tackle that composition now?" he asked encouragingly.

"I guess so," answered Steve carelessly. "Are you through?"

"Yes. I think I'll run over to Harry's a minute. I suppose you won't come."

"Not likely, with this pesky thing to do." Steve sank into his chair, picked up a pencil and drummed irritably on the table. "Maybe, though,"

he went on after a moment, "I'll get up early and do it. I don't feel much like it to-night."

"Just the same," returned Tom as he picked up his cap, "I'd do it to-night if I were you and get it over with."

"Oh, if you were me you'd had it done a week ago Tuesday," replied Steve with vast sarcasm. "I guess I'll go along."

"How about your math?" asked Tom doubtfully.

Steve shrugged. "I'll get by," he answered. "Anyway, I don't intend to stay cooped up here all the evening. I'll have a go at it when I get back, maybe."

"We-ell." Tom looked as though he wanted to advise against that course, but he didn't. Instead, "Do you mind waiting for me a minute?" he asked.

"I want to run down and ask Mr. Daley about something, if he's back. Do you want to see him if he's there? I'll whistle up to you if you like."

Steve shook his head indifferently. "I'll see him when we come back," he answered. "Hurry up."

Tom was back in two or three minutes. "Still out," he announced as he put back on the table the French book he had taken with him. "He's getting a bit dissipated, I'm afraid, staying out after eight!"

"There's a faculty meeting to-night, I think," responded Steve. "Are you ready?"

He found his cap and followed Tom. In the corridor the latter glanced back. "Better turn out the light," he said. "They've been after the fellows lately about leaving it burning."

Grumblingly Steve stepped back and snapped the switch. "Who's monitor here, anyhow?" he asked.

"Upton," answered Tom. "And they say he's right on his job, too."

"He would be," growled the other. "He's a regular teacher's pet." As they went down the stairs Steve said: "I came across Eric Sawyer in the hall when I went down to find 'Horace'."

"Really?" asked Tom. "Did he--say anything?"

"No. I didn't want any trouble with him to-night and so I made believe I didn't see him."

"That's the stuff," Tom approved. "I guess if we leave him alone he won't bother us."

"I'm likely to bother him before I get through with him," replied Steve darkly as they left the building. "He can't shove me around as he did and get away with it!"