Barry Locke, half-back

Practice was long and hard, that Wednesday afternoon, and Barry got back to the house somewhat tuckered and discouraged. Things hadn’t gone any too well with him during scrimmage. He had had an off day and no mistake, he reflected. Reviewing events, he shook his head and groaned. Having that kick blocked wasn’t so bad; that had been far less his fault than it might have appeared, for center’s pass had been poor and he had had to step to the left to reach it, delaying his kick by an appreciable fraction of time; but when he had mixed his signals and gone sky-hooting off around left end—Barry shook his head again as he visualized Ike Boardman’s reproachful look. He wanted comfort, and hoped Peaches was in his room.

But Peaches wasn’t, and not until he had entered his own room and found a hastily scrawled note on the desk was the mystery explained. Peaches had written in his perfectly abominable fist:

Off until to-morrow noon, Betty will explain. Keep mum.

Wondering, Barry set forth to look for Betty, but she was not in sight below and he returned upstairs and knocked softly at Toby’s portal. From beyond it came the tap-tap of a small typewriter, a recent acquisition purchased, as Toby had gravely explained, to write labels for his collection. From the sounds Barry gathered that Toby used the two-finger method, and that to muffle the clatter he had taken the instrument on his knees. A second knock was necessary to gain permission to enter, and, as usual, when Barry opened the door he was met with an impatient frown from the occupant.

“What’s it now?” demanded Toby, a finger poised above the keyboard.

“Gosh! can’t a fellow make a social call on you,” asked Barry, “without becoming a—an object of suspicion? What’s the awful smell in here?”

Toby sniffed right, left, and ahead.

“I don’t smell anything,” he replied offendedly. “Maybe, though, it’s chloroform; I was using some a while ago. But chloroform isn’t awful.”

“Been committing murder again? Say, do you know—I mean have you seen Peaches?”

“Yes, I have,” answered Toby, aggrievedly, pounding the poised finger home on an inoffensive key. “He came in here an hour ago and took all the money I had!”

“Well, he probably needed it,” said Barry, soothingly. “Did he say anything?”

“Well, you don’t suppose he sandbagged me, do you? Of course he said anything! He asked me how much I had and I told him six dollars and he said, ‘Good! I’ll take it!’ And—and I let him have it.”

“I mean,” said Barry, “he didn’t say what he wanted it for, did he?”

Toby shook his head.

“I didn’t think to ask him. That’s funny, isn’t it? Six dollars is a good deal of money, too. Now, I wonder what he did want it for! Gee! I wish I’d asked him!”

“You certainly should have,” Barry agreed soberly. “I’m not sure Peaches is capable of handling such a vast sum.”

“You aren’t?” Toby looked startled. “Gee! what do you suppose—” Then he saw the visitor’s lurking smile and grunted. “Aw, get out! I guess he’s seen more money than that! Anyway—” and Toby chuckled—“I fooled him. I had another dollar I didn’t tell him about!”

Barry didn’t get the explanation from Betty until after supper. Sitting on the porch in spite of the chill of the frosty night, they talked Peaches’ venture over. Betty wasn’t very hopeful. After a silence of nearly two weeks, she said, Davy had written a few days before, from a town in Massachusetts, that he had failed to find work and was leaving the next day. She didn’t believe that Peaches would be able to trace him.

“He will have to be back by to-morrow noon, Barry, or get into trouble, because Mr. Puffer would let him off only until then. That won’t give him much time for making inquiries and trying to find Davy, will it?”

“No, it doesn’t seem so. When will he get there? To the place your brother wrote from, I mean.”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t time to talk much. He went right off to see Mr. Puffer and stopped only a few minutes on the way back. It can’t be far, though. I think he’s there by now, surely. If it just might happen that Davy had changed his mind and hadn’t left there after all!”

“I don’t suppose we can count on that,” said Barry. “Just the same, it’s a cinch that Peaches will find him if it’s possible to. He doesn’t make much splash, but he gets there, Betty!”

“I don’t suppose we should have let him go,” said Betty. “Only it all happened so suddenly that—that he was off before I could think! There’s so little chance of his finding him, you see; and then it will cost a good deal, too. And if he should find him and bring him back I’d be scared to death. The police would be certain to see him or learn he was here, and then things would be worse than ever.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Betty. Peaches will find a way to get him here without his being seen, I guess. He could wait until night, couldn’t he? Anyway, if it’s going to help Mr. Benjy it’s worth the risk, I’d say.”

Mrs. Lyle called Betty, and, left alone, Barry pondered how to spend the next hour or so. He missed Peaches—no mistake! Toby’s companionship offered little enticement. Nor did Mill’s, for these days Mill put the entire burden of entertainment on the radio. In the end he made up his mind to go to see Clyde!

His courage almost but not quite left him before he reached the partly open door of Number 42 Dawson. From within came a medley of voices and his knock produced several loud invitations to enter. When he did so, Clyde looked surprised and flustered. Jake Greenwalk and Goof Ellingham stared in a bored manner and Hal Stearns’s expression was of mingled incredulity and hostility. Clyde, though, didn’t let the silence grow awkward.

“Hello!” he exclaimed in friendly tones. “Come on in, youngster. You know these ducks, don’t you?”

Jake and Goof greeted him affably enough, possibly taking their cue from the host. If Hal uttered any greeting Barry didn’t hear it. Barry found a seat and replied to Clyde’s inquiries as to his recent activities, the news from home, and so on, and then the interrupted conversation went on again.

The new-comer listened in silence for a while. Major Loring, it appeared, was conducting the Broadmoor football team straight down the path to destruction. The principal exponents of this theme were Clyde and Hal, but Goof tacitly agreed with them. The assistant coaches were a couple of “false alarms” and were balling things up in such a fashion that a guy didn’t know what to do any more. They were still going strong when Jake Greenwalk cut in with:

“What do you think about it, Locke? Haven’t heard your hammer yet.”

“Oh, Locke’s subsidized,” laughed Goof, not offensively, however. “You mustn’t expect a frank opinion from him.”

“Gosh, no!” sneered Hal. “He’s teacher’s little pet.”

“Don’t get nasty,” said Jake.

“Why,” answered Barry, quietly, “I’m new here yet and probably haven’t any right to an opinion. But if you really want it, it’s this, Greenwalk: I think the Major and Graham and Mears are doing a pretty good job.”

“You surprise me!” said Hal. “Think of that!”

“Well, you haven’t much to complain of,” remarked Clyde, dryly. “You’d be a chump to kick, I’ll say.”

Goof and Jake went off after a minute or two and Barry said:

“You chaps will want to do some studying, so I’ll wander.”

“Don’t say ‘want to,’” Clyde objected, accompanying him to the door. Hal had already picked up a book and was ostentatiously unregardful of the guest’s departure. “Well, drop in again,” said Clyde, nervously perfunctory at the threshold. Barry turned and looked at him straightly.

“Does that mean that you want me to, Clyde?” he asked.

“Why, sure!” Clyde accompanied the reply with a short laugh and his eyes fell before Barry’s gaze. Nevertheless he stepped after the other into the hall, and once past the door he added in a lowered voice: “Say, don’t think too much about the other day, Barry. You know how it is when a fellow gets peeved.” He tried to speak carelessly, but Barry was certain that he detected a ring of sincerity underneath.

“That’s all right, Clyde,” he answered eagerly. “Let’s forget!”

The other nodded and turned hurriedly back.

“So long,” he called.

It wasn’t much of an apology, Barry reflected on his way home, but it was a good deal from Clyde. He wondered if it was too late to try again to get out of football. To-night he felt courageous enough to face two or three Major Lorings! But sober thought told him that the die was cast and that nothing he could do now would aid Clyde’s ambitions.

When he awoke in the morning it was not to Betty’s cheerful announcement of “Hot water, Barry!” but to the ungentle proddings of Peaches. Barry viewed the intruder sleepily and vaguely inquired, “What time’s it?”

“Ten minutes to seven, sluggard,” replied Peaches, securing a less precarious seat on the edge of the bed. “Get up and hear the birdies sing!” Barry’s mind cleared itself of the mists of slumber and he opened his eyes wide.

“Where—when—” he exclaimed.

“Five minutes ago,” answered Peaches, grinning.

Barry sat up suddenly and sank his voice.

“Did you find him?” he asked anxiously.

For reply Peaches slowly lowered his left eyelid.