“‘Hail, the conquering hero comes!’” chanted Jimmy when Monty pushed open the door of Number 14 Lothrop after supper that night.
Monty shied a book at him. “I’m going to lick someone pretty quick,” he threatened, “if I hear any more of this name business.” But the threat didn’t sound convincing, and Jimmy, as he rescued the battered book, only grinned. Dud ostentatiously dusted a chair and pushed it forward, and Leon, who had followed Monty into the room, accepted it, murmuring graciously: “So kind of you, I’m shuah!” But Dud fell on him indignantly and he was glad to slide, squealing, to the floor. When order had been restored Jimmy demanded a full and explicit description of how it felt to be a school hero.
“I suppose you have a sort of a glow, eh? A—a feeling of—of exaltation. It must be fine to float around over the heads of us lesser dubs——”
“Cut out the low comedy stuff, Jimmy,” begged Monty. “I came up here for a dime’s worth of sympathy and all you hand me is a lot of silly guff.”
“Sorry, dearie. Come across with the sob stuff. What’s blighting your young life?”
“Standart,” said Monty drearily. Leon choked on a gurgle of amusement as Monty turned an accusing look toward him.
“What’s he done now?” inquired Dud. “Slept in his shoes?”
“No, he’s gone and bought himself a piccolo!”
“A piccolo!” echoed Dud ecstatically.
“Let him eat it,” advised Jimmy. “Maybe it’ll choke him. Hope it does, too. Any fellow who will eat pickles——”
“Don’t be a silly gopher,” growled Monty. “You don’t eat the things. You play on them.”
“Oh, I thought a piccolo was a young pickle,” replied Jimmy innocently. “What do you play on them for?”
“To make a beast of a noise, I suppose. I don’t know any other answer. He just got it——”
“A piccolo, Jimmy,” explained Dud carefully, “is a musical instrument—” Monty snorted—“a musical instrument resembling a flute. You might call it a flutette. It——”
“I’ve called it worse than that,” sighed Monty.
“It’s just one little octave higher than the ordinary or garden flute and consequently it is just that much more excruciating to listen to. Although history does not reveal the origin of the piccolo, it is generally supposed to have originated with the Spanish Inquisition. If you survived being boiled in oil and drawn-and-quartered and a few other exercises you were serenaded by the Piccolo Quartette and always died in frightful agony within four minutes.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” said Jimmy suspiciously. “You don’t happen to have the piccolo habit, I trust?”
“It’s all very well for you chaps to joke,” mourned Monty, “but if you had to live with one of the things you wouldn’t think it so funny.”
“When did this piccolo appear on the scene?” asked Jimmy.
“Today. He just got it to worry me, I guess. He can’t play it, but he’s going to learn, he says.” Monty scowled around at the amused faces. “If that Indian is found cold and lifeless in his bed some morning you fellows will know the reason. Why, say, the thing sounds—it sounds like a piece of Swiss cheese singing to its mate!”
Unfeeling howls of laughter greeted the simile, and Monty had to smile a bit himself. “Laugh, you bunch of horned toads,” he muttered.
“Why don’t you pinch it?” asked Dud. “Throw it out of the window or drop it in the river.”
“I can’t get it without fighting him for it. He keeps it in his pocket when he isn’t playing it and I suppose he will put it under his pillow at night. The only hope for me is that the other fellows will go crazy and kill him. I shall insist on having the door open when he plays.”
“Yes, you could do that,” Jimmy agreed thoughtfully. “You could say that you just had to change the air.”
Monty looked puzzled, but Leon laughed and Dud smiled proudly. “Isn’t he clever?” he asked. “All due to me!”
“Well, say, aside from this piccolette, or whatever you call it,” said Jimmy, “everything remains in status quo, so to speak, between you and the fascinating Alvin? That is to say, old dear, he hasn’t made any more threats about—er—you know?”
“Oh, that! No, I guess he’s decided to drop it. I told him plainly that he would meet a swift and horrible end if he told what he knows. He hates me like poison, but I guess I’ve got him scared.”
“Well, scare him again,” suggested Leon. “Tell him you’ll wash his face if he doesn’t stop playing the piccolo.”
Monty shook his head. “I tried to scare him, but it didn’t seem to work. He says he has a right to play a musical instrument in his room at any time except study hour. I suppose he has, too. Joe Mullins says so.”
“Best thing for you to do,” said Dud, “is get a cornet or a—a French horn or something.”
“They’d sound the riot-call then,” said Monty dismally. “No, the only thing is to kill him. I’ve tried to think up some other scheme, but there isn’t any. Say, do you suppose his parents are fond of him?”
“You never can tell,” answered Jimmy. “Parents are queer that way. There’s Dud, now. His folks appear to be quite interested in him.”
“Oh, Dud has his points,” said Leon, “but it really is strange to think that anyone could honestly care what happened to Standart!”
“My theory,” said Jimmy, yawning, “is that Standart has some—some hidden charm that we don’t know about, some golden nugget within the unattractive matrix of his—er—personality. It stands to reason, fellows, for no one could be all through the way Standart is outside. Why, just think, if he’s like this now, what must he have been at, say, five? No, sir, if he didn’t have some hidden virtue his nurse would have dropped him down a well!”
“Oh, bother Standart,” said Dud. “Let’s talk of something pleasant. I heard today that Manson is out of football for the season, that his leg is a lot worse than they’re letting on. Know anything about it, Monty?”
“He was out at the field this afternoon,” was the reply. “He coached me for a good half-hour.”
“Well, if he is gone for good it will play hob with the team,” said Dud. “Manson’s the best fullback we’ve had in years.”
“You forget that our friend, Mr. Crail, Mr. A. Monty Crail, is some fullback,” remarked Jimmy. “I’m hearing very good reports of him, very good indeed. Bonner and I are very hopeful about Crail.”
“I’ll bet Monty will play a corking game when he’s been at it a while,” replied Dud earnestly, “but you can’t expect any fellow to step into Manson’s shoes and walk off with them. Caner isn’t bad, but he’s not in the same class with Manson. Besides, who’s going to do the kicking?”
“Winslow,” said Monty. “And Brunswick. Brunswick’s all right at goals and he’s a peach of a punter.”
“But he can’t put them over the bar the way Manson can. We’ll be all right for punters, because Blake’s a mighty good punter and Gus Weston isn’t so poor, but if we lose Manson we’re going to be squarely up against it when it comes to drop-kicking.”
“A few minutes ago,” remarked Jimmy, “some gentleman present suggested that we talk of pleasant things. Since then I’ve heard nothing but hard-luck yarns. I’m going where the atmosphere is less humid. You fellows can stay right here, if you like, and keep on weeping. Only please don’t get the carpet too wet.”
“Where are you going?” asked Leon.
“Over to Lit. Any other gentleman care to come? All are invited. This is debate night and the finest minds of the school will be on tap. The subject—well, I disremember, but I think it’s—‘Resolved: That one member of Literary Society is better than seven members of Forum.’”
Dud howled derisively and the quartette adjourned to School Hall.
The debate was not especially exciting to Monty, and he couldn’t for the life of him see why the speakers got so wrought up. After it was over he left the others in front of Trow and walked home to Morris, encountering two other occupants of that dormitory on the way and finishing the walk in their company. While they were still some distance away they heard shrill and plaintive wails, and Monty groaned.
“It’s Standart and his piccolo,” he explained. “I have to live with it, fellows.”
“I’m hanged if I would,” said Denham indignantly as they ran up the steps. “I’d pitch it out the window.”
“And do it while Alvin was still playing it,” chuckled his roommate.
Alvin was seated at the table with a book of exercises opened before him and a strained expression on his face. The piccolo was glued to his puckered lips as he turned to view Monty. The latter pretended surprise.
“Oh, it’s you!” he said. “We heard the noise and thought someone was pulling the cat’s tail. Say, I believe you’re getting on with it, Standart. It sounds a heap worse than it did before supper. I guess you’re one of those fellows with a natural gift for music, aren’t you?”
But Alvin made no reply. He only turned his head away, fixed his gaze again on the music and proceeded to evoke piercing sounds from the piccolo. Monty tried not to mind it as he undressed, but didn’t make a great big success of it.
“Gee, that thing must be suffering horribly,” he said once as he wriggled into his pyjamas. “Oughtn’t you to put it out of its misery, partner?”
“Oh, shut up,” gasped Alvin, rather short of breath. “I’ve got a right to play this.”
“Sure, you have! I don’t dispute it, partner. But let me tell you that many a man has perished for the right before this.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” replied Alvin, scowling blackly. “I’ve got you where I want you, Crail. Just you get gay with me and see what happens.”
“Yes, and just you let anything happen and see me get gay with you,” answered Monty grimly, as he crawled into bed. Alvin muttered a moment and then started off again. Monty bore it for five minutes. Then he stifled a groan and said: “For the love of mud, Standart, don’t torture the poor thing! Kill it, if you want to, but don’t let it suffer. Besides, hombre, it’s nearly ten o’clock and I want to go to sleep.”
“Go ahead and sleep,” said Alvin triumphantly. “I’ve got a right to play this until ten, and I’m going to.”
“Do you call that playing?” demanded Monty peevishly. “What do you think work is, then? Isn’t there any—any music in it? Isn’t there some note you haven’t found that doesn’t sound like Sam Hill?”
“It’s all music,” answered Alvin in superior tones. “I’m playing it the way it’s written.”
“Gee, did somebody write that?” asked Monty incredulously. “What’s the composer’s name, Standart? Does he live around here? Could I reach him tonight?”
“Forget it,” growled the other. “You’re not funny.”
Monty rolled over and drew the covers over his head and tried to think about football and what his chance of playing against Mount Morris was and whether he could learn to play as well as Caner if he tried very hard every day. But those frightful wails from the piccolo would not be forgotten. Once someone pounded at the door and said uncomplimentary things, but Alvin kept on blowing. Finally Monty raised himself and looked across at the alarm clock. It was ten minutes of ten. He wondered if Alvin could last ten minutes longer. Then he wondered if he could! He had had a pretty strenuous afternoon and was dog-tired and wanted to sleep, but sleep with that noise in his ears was impossible. He stood it five minutes longer, getting more and more nervous, and then swung himself out of bed.
“It grieves me, Standart,” he said seriously, “but I’ve stood all I can of it. Chuck it now.”
“When I get good and ready,” was the defiant reply. But Alvin watched his roommate from the corner of his eye, nevertheless, and at Monty’s first step in his direction whipped the piccolo out of sight.
“If you play another sob on the fool thing,” said Monty, “I’ll chuck it out the window or break it across my knee. I’m tired and I want to sleep.”
Alvin made no promise. He only stared insolently. Monty went back to bed.
“Tweet, tweet, twe-e-et! Tweet, Tu-u-u-weet!”
“Snakes!” Monty reached the floor standing, with the bedclothes wreathed around him. “I told you, Standart. Now I’ll show you!”
“Keep away from me!” snarled the other.
But Monty rushed and, in spite of Alvin’s blows, held him helpless. “You had fair warning,” he muttered. “Let go of it! I’ll break it if you don’t!”
“If you break it you’ll pay for it!” gasped Alvin. “And I’ll fix you, Crail!”
“You couldn’t fix—a ham sandwich,” grunted Monty contemptuously. “Let go, I tell you! There!” The piccolo was wrenched free and Alvin staggered against the table. Monty strode to a window in the alcove, thrust it up and hurled the instrument far into the darkness. When he turned back Alvin was still leaning against the table, nursing a wrenched wrist in silence. But the expression on his face was so utterly malignant that Monty marveled. “Sorry, Standart,” he said, “but I had to do it. Hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“It’s all right,” replied the other after a moment in expressionless tones. “You warned me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Warned me? What about?”
But Alvin made no answer. Instead, he began to undress silently. Monty gathered the bedclothes up and restored them to some order and once more retired. But he was not easy in his mind. Standart could make trouble for him if he wanted to. Perhaps he had been foolish to increase the other’s enmity. If Standart took that story to the faculty—but, snakes, he wouldn’t dare to! Anyway, what was done was done and meanwhile he was horribly sleepy, and——
Monty’s gentle snores were heard before Alvin was ready for bed, and the latter, reaching to turn out the light, paused in the act and looked gloatingly across at the slumbering form of his roommate.
“Just wait!” he muttered. “Just wait, Crail!”