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Updated: May 23, 2025
"You poor lobster!" muttered Hooker contemptuously, as he chugged past. "If Grant really should pan out to be the better man, you'd feel like kicking yourself. I'd like to tell you what I think of you." That night after supper, as usual, Rackliff strolled over to Hooker's home, but he strolled with steps somewhat quickened by the prospect of taking a turn on his friend's motorcycle.
Despite the fact that he pretended to be as serene and unconcerned as his companions, who, perhaps, did not realize the danger, Herbert Rackliff was not fully at his ease; for he knew that such driving through a place where there were intersecting streets with blind corners was folly indeed. As the bridge was approached the road swung to the left.
In something like five minutes Rackliff, smoking his tenth cigarette since seating himself on the box, heard the repeated explosions of the motorcycle, and Roy, his face beaming with satisfaction, reappeared, came triumphantly up the rise and leaped off. "She goes like a bird," he cried. "What did you do to it?" asked Herbert. "I wish I knew. I just tinkered with the wires a bit.
It was lucky for Rackliff that Lela was there and her hand fell on the arm of the boy from Texas, for otherwise Rodney might have forgotten himself. Fearing his lack of self-restraint, the girl urged him away, and they left Herbert leaning against a tree and still laughing, his cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
"Not a rap," nodded Rackliff. "That's just it. Now this is my home, and I've got to be careful about some things. I don't want to get everybody down on me." "I haven't observed," said Rackliff unfeelingly, "that you're particularly popular with the fellows of this benighted burg." "I'll make myself a blame sight more unpopular if they ever get onto it that I bet against my own school team.
"You don't seem to be practicing with the great Oakdale nine," said Herbert, bringing forth a fresh cigarette. "I'm surprised at that." "Are you? Well, you needn't be." In lighting the cigarette Rackliff was seized by a choking fit of coughing, which led him to wipe his eyes with a dainty silk handkerchief.
Eliot might be forced to give me a show, and if that happens I'll deliver the goods " Rackliff snapped his yellow fingers. "You've got the baseball bug bad," he said. "It's a disease. I suppose it has to have its run with the fellows who become infected. All right, waste your time; but while you're doing it, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a spin on your motorcycle.
Later he saw Eliot and Barker talking together not far from the bench, and near them stood Herbert Rackliff, a city boy who had entered Oakdale Academy at the opening of the spring term. Rackliff was a chap whose clothes were the envy of almost every lad in town, being tailor-made, of the latest cut and the finest fabric.
"Hello," grunted Hooker, without any effort at cordiality or welcome. "Tinkering with that old thing again, I see," coughed Rackliff. "Thanks to you, I am." "Thanks to me?" "Yes; it has been out of order ever since you used it last. Baseball practice doesn't give me much time to work on it by daylight, and so I'm trying to get her running now."
Passing Hooker's home on his way down into the village Thursday evening, Rackliff saw a light in the carriage house, which led him to fancy he might find Roy there. In this he was not mistaken; Hooker was puttering over his motorcycle by the light of a lantern. Hearing a footstep on the gravel outside, he looked up and perceived the visitor entering by the open door. "Hello," said Herbert.
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