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At the same instant Westby flung up both arms, tottered on the topmost step, and succeeded in regaining his poise with apparently great difficulty. The class giggled. “Mr. Upton, sir! Mr. Upton, sir!” cried Westby excitedly. “Did you feel the earthquake? It was very noticeable on this side of the room. Do you think it’s safe for us to stay indoors, sir? There may be another shock!”
Westby made one or two experimental lunges with it and remarked musingly, “When I catch him square above the bread line with this—!” “Come on, then!” said Collingwood. “Come here, Ned!” Morrill swam ashore and pushed off in one of the canoes with Collingwood—taking the stern seat and the paddle. Collingwood knelt in the bow, with his spear laid across the gun-wales in front of him.
“But this is not a newspaper.” “It’s part of one.” “Yes, sir, but the rule is against bringing newspapers to table—not against bringing newspaper clippings to table.” “The rule’s been changed,” said Irving. “It now includes clippings.” “You see how it is, fellows.” Westby turned to the others. “Persecuted—always persecuted. If I’m within the rules—they change the rules to soak me.
“You’ve got to suppress them when they’re fresh like that,” insisted Lawrence. “For a fellow to talk to you in that fresh way before a guest—and that guest your brother—I don’t stand for it; that’s all.” “No, I don’t either. Well, it doesn’t matter much; reproof slides off Westby like water off a duck’s back.”
“Didn’t he—isn’t he—” Westby hesitated for an uncomfortable moment, then blurted out, “Isn’t he sore at me, Mr. Upton?” “What for?” “For saying about him what I did—about his trying to lay Collingwood out when he tackled.” “He doesn’t know you said it.” “Oh! Didn’t you tell him?” “No. The criticism was unjust—there was no use in repeating it.”
He apologized for his state of mind and told the boys the cause; those who, like Carroll, were Harvard sympathizers derived a little cheer from the news, and the others seemed indifferent to it. Westby was not there. The training table was vacant, and at the other tables were empty chairs where substitutes on the team had sat. Mrs. Barclay was entertaining the football players.
Carefully Westby descended the ladder, mumbling all the time sentences of which the lingerers caught fragmentary scraps: “Horrible experience that of Allison’s—dreadful situation to have been in—so fortunate that I was at hand—the man who dares—reckless courage, ready resource—home again!” He dropped to the floor, and raising his hand to his forehead, saluted Irving.
He had spoken mildly; he did not even emphasize the words “clumsy and stupid.” But the retort went home; the Pythians at the table,—of whom Blake was one,—chuckled; and Westby, with a deeper shade of crimson on his face and a sudden compression of his lips, lowered his eyes. Irving had triumphed, but after the first moment he felt surprisingly little satisfaction in his triumph.
Two nights Irving spent all alone in the Sixth Form dormitory; it amused him to walk up and down the corridors with the list of those to whom rooms there had been assigned. “Collingwood, Westby, Scarborough, Morrill, Anderson, Baldersnaith, Hill”—some of them had occupied these rooms as Fifth Formers, and Irving had asked Mr. Barclay about them.
But Scarborough’s attitude had been one of entire indifference; he would stand by and smile sometimes when Westby was engaged in chaffing Irving, and then, as if tired of it, he would turn his back and walk away. Irving visited Barclay at his house during the noon recess, borrowed his revolver, and received the last simple instructions.
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