Winning His "W" Part 23

"Yes, if there's room."

"I think there will be."

"He can make his way all right, I think, but you'll have to help me with Peter John. Get hold of his other arm. That's right," he added as Will grasped his maudlin cla.s.smate by the left arm, while Foster supported him by the right.

"Come on, Mott, if you want to ride up," said Will sharply to the soph.o.m.ore.

"That ish good o' you, freshman," drawled Mott. "Broke, dead broke! Do ash much for you some day. You get broke some daysh, I s'pose."

"Shut up, Mott," said Foster savagely.

"A'-a' right. Just's you say, not's I care."

A few in the a.s.semblage noted the condition of the boys and laughed thoughtlessly, but neither Will nor his room-mate was in a frame of mind to respond. Disgusted, angry, mortified beyond expression, they nevertheless a.s.sisted the boys to the seats in the taxi which Will had secured, and quickly doing as he was bidden, the driver started rapidly up the street. Peter John had fallen heavily against Will's shoulder and was instantly asleep, but Mott was not to be so easily disposed of.

Peering out from the window at the crowds that were moving up the street and by which the taxi was pa.s.sing, he emitted three or four wild whoops and then began to sing:

"We're coming, we're coming, our brave little band, On the right side of temperance we always do stand; We don't use tobacco, for this we do think, That those who do use it most always do drink."

"Mott, if you don't keep quiet I'll throw you out," exclaimed Will mortified as he perceived that the pa.s.sing crowd was turning about to discover what the noisy commotion meant.

"A'-a' right," responded Mott in a shout that could have been heard far away. "I'll be as sthill as an intensified hippopotamus! Not a sound of my voice shall awake the echoes of these purple hills. I'll not be the one to arouse the slumbers of this peaceful vale."

"Driver," interrupted Will sharply, "stop your cab."

"No, no, Will, you'll only make a bad matter worse. Let's keep on and do the best we can. It'll only call attention to ourselves," said Foster hastily.

"Thatsh sho," a.s.sented Mott noisily, swaying in his seat as he spoke.

"Keep on, driver. Go straight up to prexy's house; I've got something p'ticular to shay t' him. Shame, way the team sold out t'-day! Disgrace to old Winthrop! Have a good mind to leave the college myself an' go to Alden; they're men there! They know how to stan' up an' take their med'cine. Great place, Alden! Guess they'll be shorry here when they shee me with a great big A on my sweater!"

"Mott, keep still," exclaimed Foster.

"Keep still yerself, freshman. Don't talk t' me."

There was nothing to be done except to endure it all in silence or put the noisy student out of the taxi. Poor Will felt that the people they were pa.s.sing looked upon all four of the occupants of the cab as if they were all in the same disgraceful condition. His eyes blazed and his cheeks were crimson. To him it seemed as if the cab was scarcely moving on its way to Leland Hall. The way was interminable, the suffering almost too great to be endured.

At last, however, the driver stopped before the dormitory where Mott had his room and Foster said, "Will, I'll look after this fellow if you'll attend to Peter John."

"n.o.body--no freshman in p'ticular--ish going to help me!" exclaimed Mott noisily. "I can walk a chalk line, I can. Keep your eyes on me and you'll see how it's done."

"All right. Get out, then," said Foster hastily.

Mott lurched out of the cab, and the driver, at Foster's word, at once started on and neither of the boys glanced behind to see how it fared with the intoxicated soph.o.m.ore. They were eager now to dispose of their cla.s.smate, and as soon as the taxi halted in front of Leland Hall they tried to arouse the slumbering freshman. At last, by dint of their united efforts, they succeeded in lifting him to the ground, and then they somehow got him up the stairway and soon had him in his bed. When their labors were ended Will exclaimed, "It must be midnight. Surely the people couldn't see who we were except when the cab pa.s.sed the street lights, but I'm afraid some of them knew then."

"That isn't so bad. I don't care half so much about their seeing as I do about something else."

"What's that?"

"What they saw. Poor fool!" he added bitterly as he turned and glanced at the bed whereon Peter John was lying and noisily sleeping. "I did my best to hold him back, but he would go on with Mott."

"Do you think he lost his money too?"

"Haven't a doubt of it."

"And he didn't have very much to lose."

"It was all he had. It would have been the same if it had been seven thousand instead of just plain seven. He was so set up by the attentions of Mott that he was an easy mark. I never saw anything like it."

"Well, all I can say is that I hope I sha'n't again, but probably I shall if he stays in college," said Will bitterly.

"It's in him, that's about all one can say," said Foster. "If it hadn't been here it would have been somewhere else. And yet they say that a college is a dangerous place for a young fellow to be in."

"I don't believe it."

"No more do I. There are all kinds here the same as there are pretty much everywhere, and all there is of it is that a fellow has a little more freedom to follow out just what he wants to do."

"Come on," suggested Will, starting toward the door. "We can't do anything more for Peter John. He'll probably be around to see us to-morrow."

As the boys approached the doorway they met Hawley and at his urgent request turned back into the room with him. The big freshman glanced at his sleeping room-mate and then laughed as he said, "Too young. Ought not to have left his mother yet." As neither of the boys replied, Hawley continued, "He'll have to quit that or he'll queer himself in the college. I don't know that he can do that any more successfully than he has done already though," he added.

Will was irritated that Hawley should take the matter in such a light way and said half-angrily, "Do you suppose he'll be hauled up before the faculty?"

"Not unless they hear of it," laughed Hawley, "and I don't believe they will."

"Tell us about the game," interrupted Foster.

"My story is short and not very sweet," retorted Hawley grimly, glancing at his arm as he spoke.

"How did that happen?"

"n.o.body knows. It's done and that's all there is to it. I'm out of the game for the rest of this season."

"That's too bad. Did Alden really have such a tremendous team?"

"Look at the score. You know what that was, don't you?"

"Yes, I heard. Come on, Will. We'd better be in bed. We'll get Hawley to tell us all about the game some other time. Come on."

The two freshmen at once departed, but when they were in their own room it was not the lost game which was uppermost in their minds and conversation, but the fall of Peter John. And when at last they sought their beds it was with the conviction that Peter John himself would seek them out within a day or two and try to explain how it was that his downfall had occurred. This, they thought, would give them the opportunity they desired, and if the faculty did not discover the matter and take action of their own then they might be able to say or do something to recall Peter John to himself.

On the following day, however, their cla.s.smate did not appear, and in the days that followed he did not once come to their room. Mott they had seen, but he had only laughed lightly when he met them and made no reference to the ride he had taken in their taxi.

"I don't believe Peter John knows that we know anything about what happened on his trip," said Foster thoughtfully one day.

"What makes him keep away from us all the time, then?"

"That's so. Probably his conscience isn't in the best of condition. You don't suppose he's waiting for us to make the first move, do you?"

"I don't know."