Barry Locke, half-back
“Huh? What table?”
“The one that was in Mr. Key’s room. You’ll have to put it back, Toby.”
Mrs. Lyle strove to speak firmly, but succeeded only in sounding
apologetic.
“Oh, thunder!” replied an aggrieved voice. “I need that table,
awfully.” The door opened wider, disclosing a strange apparition――a
boy in a bath-robe of barbaric coloring; a tall, extremely thin youth
with unkempt black hair above a pale, annoyed countenance, and a pair
of round spectacles which lent him the likeness of a perturbed owl. One
hand held a glass jar in which some livid object floated nauseatingly
in a cloudy fluid, the other a squirming, palpitant green frog of
heroic proportions. There was a shriek from Mrs. Lyle, a startled grunt
from the boy, and the frog leaped into space.
“Now!” cried Toby Nott, anguish on his face. “Now see what you’ve done!”
CHAPTER II
JONES LENDS A HAND
The frog’s name was Antonio, explained the boy in the bath-robe as he
and Barry began the search. He had been having his supper――that is,
Antonio had――when Mrs. Lyle knocked. He had refused to eat and Toby had
been obliged to resort to forcible feeding. He had brought Antonio from
home, and of course the frog hadn’t had time to get used to the place
yet. Maybe he had gone downstairs.
He had. Barry found him under the telephone table. He seemed
very nervous, Barry thought, which was not unnatural under the
circumstances. Toby recaptured him expertly and bore him back upstairs.
Mrs. Lyle, recovered from her shock, was inclined to be tragic.
“Really, Toby, I don’t see how I can allow you to keep such dreadful
things in your room! I don’t mind the――the bugs, because they’re
dead, and last year I said nothing when you had those snakes in the
cracker-box, but things that jump, like frogs, and scare folks to
death――”
Toby viewed her in genuine surprise from behind the thick lenses of his
spectacles.
“Why, Mrs. Lyle, frogs won’t hurt you! Anyway, I’m going to have an
aquarium for him just as soon as I can find one. And that’s what I need
that table for. I just don’t see how I can do without it.”
Barry didn’t, either. Just now the table, which was a small affair, was
loaded with jars and tin boxes and various other articles, and if Toby
moved them they must, it seemed, go on the floor, since every other
surface appeared fully occupied. It was a strange apartment that Barry
viewed from the doorway. How its occupant managed to get around in it
was a mystery. Barry counted four tables, including the one recently
acquired, three packing-boxes substituting as tables, and a bench, the
latter evidently home-made. Then there were shelves on every side, it
seemed, and all were full. Barry caught glimpses of impaled butterflies
and moths and beetles, of gruesome objects in bottles and jars, of
receptacles of whose unseen contents he was more than suspicious, and
felt thankful for the impenetrable if unlovely wall that stood between
Toby Nott’s room and his!
“But, Toby,” Mrs. Lyle was protesting weakly, “it belongs in Mr. Key’s
room, and it’s the only one I have left. You’ll really have to――”
“It doesn’t matter a bit,” declared Barry. “Fact is, I’ve got a table
coming and Nott is quite welcome to this one.”
Toby Nott looked his gratitude and pulled his bath-robe more decorously
about him. Most of the buttons were gone and eternal vigilance was the
price of modesty. Mrs. Lyle said, “Well――” relievedly and yielded.
Outside again, with Toby Nott’s door firmly closed on their retreat,
she shook her head, sighed, and then smiled as one who realizes her
weakness.
“I suppose I ought to have made him put it back,” she said. “If Betty
were here―― She’s the only one who can do anything with him. If it
weren’t for Betty he’d have――have――goodness gracious! I don’t know
what he wouldn’t have in there! He’s a dear boy, though. Well, now, if
everything isn’t satisfactory―― Of course you won’t find things here as
you’re used to them at home, but we do want you to be comfortable, and
if there’s anything I’ve forgotten――”
Mrs. Lyle was interrupted by the expressman. Barry yielded his check,
left a half-dollar with the landlady, washed up, and hurried off toward
school, already late for his appointment with Clyde. The school
grounds began a stone’s throw from the Lyle house, their limit marked
by a stone wall which, reaching the road, became more ornamental as
it turned and went on to the nearer of the two gates. Stone pillars
guarded the entrance, and on the left-hand one was a modest panel
bearing the announcement: “BROADMOOR SCHOOL――EST. 1886.” The curving
driveway was lined with maples and as they still held their leaves, it
was not until Barry had progressed some distance that he obtained a
real view of the buildings.
Rather plain, they were, conservatively Colonial all. Croft, toward
which the drive led, was a large structure of red brick with gray-stone
trim, its slate roof broken in the center by a squat belfry. Farther
back and to the left was Dawson Hall, newer but so wrapped about in ivy
as to seem a contemporary of the original building. Occupying a similar
location to the right was Meddill, the other dormitory. Bates, most
recent of all, stood behind Croft, completing the quadrangle. Viewed
under the ruddy rays of the sinking sun, shaded here and there by elms
and maples, the buildings looked friendly and hospitable, and Barry’s
heart warmed to them. Maybe he was going to like Broadmoor, after all!
He found the school office without difficulty and the operation of
registering was soon over. He didn’t expect to find Clyde in the
dormitory, for it was already past six, but he made his way up the
stone stairway to the second floor and looked for Number 42. The
building was evidently utterly deserted and the long corridor stretched
before him dim and silent. The door of Clyde’s room was ajar and after
knocking Barry thrust it wider and peered in. It was lighter than the
corridor and showed itself much as Clyde had described it, a generously
large, square room with rough-plastered walls and a beamed ceiling.
A big study table, book-shelves, several comfortable chairs, and a
window-seat piled high with cushions met Barry’s somewhat wistful gaze.
A curtained alcove, now a pocket of gloom, opened at the left. It
looked awfully good to the boy in the doorway. All this might have been
his if――
His wandering eyes lighted on an object atop one of the low bookcases
and the thought went unfinished. What he saw was his picture, the
one on horseback taken at Orchard Bluff two summers before. It
wasn’t occupying a very prominent position amidst the assemblage of
photographs there, but its presence cheered Barry considerably and he
made his way back down the stairs and out into the twilight without
further thought of what might have been.
The dining-hall occupied the north wing of Bates Memorial Hall and a
hum of voices and a cheerful clatter of dishes guided him unerringly to
the entrance.
The sight of some two hundred and sixty hungry boys at supper may not
be inspiring, but it is at least interesting, and Barry paused at the
wide doorway to look. The room seemed vast, and the three ranks of
tables appeared to stretch away interminably. A round clock in the
center of the opposite wall proclaimed six-twelve. The captain of the
waiters caught sight of the tardy arrival and piloted him half-way
along the first aisle, to a vacant chair at Table 7. Food was placed
before him, a hospitable neighbor set a huge pitcher of milk beside
him, and Barry supped, relieved to discover that none of the other nine
occupants of the table paid him more than brief attention. The food was
good and there was plenty of it,――more than plenty, so far as Barry was
concerned, since travel and the heat had tired him,――and his hunger was
soon satisfied.
Most of those who sat with him were fellows of about his own age,
although three appeared a year or so younger; Fourth-Class boys,
doubtless. Conversation was scant and low-toned. One by one the chairs
emptied and the big hall grew quieter. Threatened with finding himself
the last at his table, Barry hurried through a saucer of canned peaches
and a square of cake and followed the exodus.
He had looked about for Clyde, but had not seen him, but now, following
the curving path toward Dawson, he descried him standing near the
dormitory steps, one of a group of three. Barry dawdled in the hope
that Clyde would detach himself from the others, but he didn’t, and so
the new-comer was presently shaking hands with Ellingham and Stearns.
Ellingham, addressed by the others as “Goof,” was a tall chap of
perhaps seventeen. He didn’t seem vastly impressed by the introduction,
but neither, for that matter, was Barry. Hal Stearns was a rather
ponderous youth, ponderous both as to build and manner, with plain
features, dark hair, and a good deal of color in his full cheeks. As
though fearing that he might be blamed for keeping Barry out of Number
42, he was extremely affable. Barry had made up his mind to like
Stearns, but now the resolution weakened. Ellingham went off presently
and the others climbed the stairs to the room.
If Barry had been inclined to think Clyde a bit casual over his advent,
somewhat unconcerned about his welfare, Clyde’s remarks during the
following ten minutes should have corrected any such assumption. Clyde
said that he and Hal had been discussing Barry; about his getting the
right sort of start and all that.
“There’s a lot in getting off on the right foot,” Clyde continued. “I
learned that myself last year. When a fellow doesn’t come in with his
class he’s sort of handicapped, you see. But I can help you a lot, Hal
and I both, and you’ll probably get on all right. The most important
thing of all is getting in with the right sort at the beginning. If
you pick up with the wrong bunch the other crowd will fight shy of you
and you’ll find it mighty hard to shake loose. Of course I don’t know
many Third-Class fellows, but I’ll snoop around a bit and get the dope
for you. And we’ll see that you meet some of our bunch. Meanwhile,
youngster, you’d better play safe and not get too chummy with any one.”
“Well,” said Barry, doubtfully, “I don’t know, Clyde. I’m sort of used
to picking my own friends, and so far it hasn’t seemed to do much harm.”
“Maybe, but you’ll find things different at a prep school. There are
all sorts here, and a lot of them won’t do you any good if you want
to get on. Take that guy Peaches Jones, who rooms at your place, for
example. Now, he’s a fair example of the sort to keep clear of, Barry.
He’s a regular pill.”
“That’s right,” agreed Hal. “He’s one of the baseball crowd; Tweet
Finch, and the Groves fellows, and that bunch.”
“Well, but I expect to play baseball,” said Barry, perplexed.
“I wouldn’t think of it!” replied Clyde, emphatically. “You won’t meet
the right sort at all. Of course there are two or three, like Jody
Hodson and――and――”
“Pete Johnston,” Hal suggested.
“Y-yes,” agreed Clyde, reluctantly, “although if Pete weren’t
Second-Class president I’d say he was a good deal of a bounder. Anyway,
Barry, it will be a lot better if you cut out baseball. How about
football? Of course you couldn’t make the First this year, but even if
you didn’t, you’d make the right sort of acquaintances.”
“I’m not much good, Clyde,” said Barry. “I tried last fall, but I
didn’t get anywhere. I wouldn’t mind trying for hockey. And I’d like
basket-ball, too. But I guess baseball’s my best bet.”
“Well, anyhow, lay off it until spring,” Clyde urged. “Fall practice
doesn’t amount to much. Maybe by spring you’ll be fixed so it won’t do
you any harm to mix with those rough-necks. Now, about clubs. You’d