The reason for Steve’s ill-temper
was the receipt that morning of a letter from his
father. Mr. Edwards wrote that he had just been
informed by the principal that Steve’s work
was far from satisfactory. “He tells me,”
wrote Mr. Edwards, “that your general attitude
toward your studies is careless and that in Latin
especially you are not keeping up with your class.
Now I can’t be worried by this sort of thing.
I give you fair warning that if you don’t mend
your ways you’ll be taken out of school and
put to work here in the office, and there won’t
be any more talk about college. If Mr. Fernald
had said you were not able to do the work, that would
be another thing, but he distinctly accuses you of
not trying and not caring. I suppose the whole
amount of the matter is that you’re paying too
much attention to football. If I get another complaint
about you this year I shall write Mr. Fernald to forbid
you to play football or any other game until you show
that you mean business. If that doesn’t
bring you around I shall take you out of school.
Fair warning, Steve.”
Steve knew his father well enough
to be certain that he would do just as he threatened,
and the future looked particularly dark to him that
day. Of course, if he had plenty of time he could
master his Latin and his Greek, which was
troubling him less but was by no means a favourite
course as well as any other study, he told
himself. But there was so much to be done!
And try as he might, he could never seem to find time
enough for study. If he gave up football it would,
perhaps, be easy enough, but, he asked himself bitterly,
what was the good of going to school and doing nothing
but study? What was the good of knowing how to
play football if he wasn’t to have a chance to
use his knowledge? It was all the fault of the
faculty. It tried to get too much work out of
the fellows in too short a time. But these reflections
didn’t help his case any. It was up to
him to make good with Latin. Otherwise his father
would write to Josh, as he threatened, and there’d
be no more football. If he could get through
the next month, by which time the football season
would be at an end, it would be all right. After
that he could give more time to lessons. He might,
too, he told himself, give up those swimming lessons.
But they came at an hour when it was terribly hard
to get a fellow’s mind down to study. And,
besides, he enjoyed those lessons. The only thing
to do was to stay at home in the evenings and keep
his nose in his books. Tom didn’t have much
trouble, he reflected, and why should he? Sometimes
he got thoroughly angry with Tom for the ease with
which that youth mastered lessons!
To make matters worse, just at that
time, there was due the last of the week an original
composition in French, designed by Mr. Daley as a test
for the class. French did not bother Steve much,
although this was partly due to the fact that Mr.
Daley had been very lenient with him, knowing that
he was having trouble in the classical courses.
But writing an original composition in French was
a feat that filled Steve with dismay. What the
dickens was he to write about? Mr. Daley had announced
that the composition must contain not less than twelve
hundred words. That approximated six pages in
a blue-book. Steve sighed, frowned, shook his
head and finally shrugged his shoulders. After
all, there was no use worrying about that yet.
There still remained three days for the composition,
and the most important thing now was to make a showing
in Latin. French could wait. If he didn’t
find time for the composition well, Mr.
Daley was easy! He’d get by somehow!
So Steve pegged away hard at his Latin
for several days and made a very good showing, and
Mr. Simkins, who had been contemplating harsh measures,
took heart and hoped that further reports to the principal
would be unnecessary. But what with Latin and
Greek and mathematics and history and English, that
French composition was still unwritten when Thursday
evening arrived. It had been a hard day on the
gridiron and Steve was pretty well fagged out when
study hour came. He had told himself for several
days that at the last moment he would buckle down
and do that composition, but to-night, with a hard
lesson in geometry staring him in the face, the thing
looked impossible. Across the study table, Tom
was diligently digging into Greek, his French composition
already finished and ready to be handed in on the morrow.
Steve looked over at him enviously and sighed.
He hadn’t an idea in his head for that composition!
After a while, when he had spoiled two good sheets
of paper with meaningless scrawls, he pushed back
his chair. There was just one course open.
He would go down and tell Mr. Daley that he couldn’t
do it! After all, “Horace” was a
pretty reasonable sort of chap and would probably
give him another day or two. In any case, it was
impossible to do the thing to-night. He glanced
at his watch and found that the time was ten minutes
to eight. Tom looked up inquiringly as Steve’s
chair went back.
“I’m going down to see
‘Horace,’” said Steve. “I
can’t do that French composition, and I’m
going to tell him so. If he doesn’t like
it, he may do the other thing.”
Tom made no reply, but he watched
his chum thoughtfully until the door had closed behind
him. Then he dug frowningly for a moment with
the nib of a pen in the blotter and finally shook
his head and went back to his book.
When Steve was half-way between the
stairwell and Mr. Daley’s door, the latter opened
and Eric Sawyer came out. Steve was in no mood
to-night to pick a quarrel and he passed the older
fellow with averted eyes, dimly aware of the scowl
that greeted him. When he knocked at the instructor’s
door there was no reply and, after a moment, Steve
turned the knob and entered. At the outer door
Eric had paused and looked back.
Mr. Daley’s study was lighted
but empty. Satisfying himself on the latter point,
Steve turned to go out. Then, reflecting that,
since the instructor had left the lights on, he was
probably coming right back, he decided to await him.
He seated himself in a chair near the big green-topped
table. Almost under his hand lay a blue-book,
and in idle curiosity Steve leaned forward and looked
at it. On the white label in the upper left-hand
corner he read: “French IV. Carl W.
Upton. Original composition.” Steve
viewed that blue-book frowningly, envying Upton deeply.
Upton, whom he knew by sight, was the sort of fellow
who always had his lessons and who was forever being
held up by the instructor to the rest of the course
as a shining example of diligence. He roomed on
the floor above Steve. It was, Steve reflected,
just like Upton to get his composition done and hand
it in in advance of the others. He wondered what
sort of stuff Upton had written, and lifted the blue-book
from the table.
“En Revanche!” he read
as he turned to the first page. His lip curled.
That was a silly title. He dipped into the story.
It was something about a French soldier accused of
cowardice by an officer. Steve, puzzling through
the first page, grudgingly acknowledged that Upton
had written pretty good stuff. But his interest
soon waned, for some of the words were beyond him,
and he idly tossed the book back on the table.
He wished, though, that that was his composition and
not Upton’s. He wondered if Mr. Daley had
seen it. Somehow the position of the book, in
the geometrical centre of the big writing-pad, suggested
that Upton had found the instructor out and had left
the book. If he had that book upstairs it wouldn’t
be hard to copy the composition out in his own hand-writing.
It would be a whole lot like stealing, but
Steve looked fascinatedly at the book
for a minute. Then his hand went out and he was
once more turning the pages of neat, close writing.
Of course, he wouldn’t really do a thing like
that, but well, it would solve a mighty
big problem! And what a hole that self-sufficient
Upton would be in! He couldn’t prove that
he had left the book in Mr. Daley’s study, at
least not unless the instructor had seen it there;
and somehow Steve was pretty sure he hadn’t.
Of course a decent chap wouldn’t do a trick
like that, only well, it would certainly
be easy enough!
Upstairs, Tom was still deep in his
Greek, but he looked up as Steve came in. “Find
him?” he asked.
Steve shook his head. “No,
he was out. I I’ll go down again.”
Instead of reseating himself at the table, he fidgetted
aimlessly about the room, looked out the window, sat
down on the seat, got up again, went to the closet,
returned to the table and stood looking down on Tom
with a frown. Tom closed his book with a sigh
of relief and met his chum’s gaze.
“Going to tackle that composition
now?” he asked encouragingly.
“I guess so,” answered
Steve carelessly. “Are you through?”
“Yes. I think I’ll
run over to Harry’s a minute. I suppose
you won’t come.”
“Not likely, with this pesky
thing to do.” Steve sank into his chair,
picked up a pencil and drummed irritably on the table.
“Maybe, though,” he went on after a moment,
“I’ll get up early and do it. I don’t
feel much like it to-night.”
“Just the same,” returned
Tom as he picked up his cap, “I’d do it
to-night if I were you and get it over with.”
“Oh, if you were me you’d
had it done a week ago Tuesday,” replied Steve
with vast sarcasm. “I guess I’ll go
along.”
“How about your math?” asked Tom doubtfully.
Steve shrugged. “I’ll
get by,” he answered. “Anyway, I don’t
intend to stay cooped up here all the evening.
I’ll have a go at it when I get back, maybe.”
“We-ell.” Tom looked
as though he wanted to advise against that course,
but he didn’t. Instead, “Do you mind
waiting for me a minute?” he asked. “I
want to run down and ask Mr. Daley about something,
if he’s back. Do you want to see him if
he’s there? I’ll whistle up to you
if you like.”
Steve shook his head indifferently.
“I’ll see him when we come back,”
he answered. “Hurry up.”
Tom was back in two or three minutes.
“Still out,” he announced as he put back
on the table the French book he had taken with him.
“He’s getting a bit dissipated, I’m
afraid, staying out after eight!”
“There’s a faculty meeting
to-night, I think,” responded Steve. “Are
you ready?”
He found his cap and followed Tom.
In the corridor the latter glanced back. “Better
turn out the light,” he said. “They’ve
been after the fellows lately about leaving it burning.”
Grumblingly Steve stepped back and
snapped the switch. “Who’s monitor
here, anyhow?” he asked.
“Upton,” answered Tom.
“And they say he’s right on his job, too.”
“He would be,” growled
the other. “He’s a regular teacher’s
pet.” As they went down the stairs Steve
said: “I came across Eric Sawyer in the
hall when I went down to find ’Horace’.”
“Really?” asked Tom. “Did he say
anything?”
“No. I didn’t want
any trouble with him to-night and so I made believe
I didn’t see him.”
“That’s the stuff,”
Tom approved. “I guess if we leave him alone
he won’t bother us.”
“I’m likely to bother
him before I get through with him,” replied Steve
darkly as they left the building. “He can’t
shove me around as he did and get away with it!”
“Oh, come, Steve!” expostulated
Tom patiently. “You know very well you
shoved him first. What’s the use of being
sore about that?”
“He bumped into me,” denied Steve.
“I didn’t shove.”
“Well, you gave a mighty good
imitation of it,” replied Tom drily. “Seems
to me it was about an even thing, and I’d forget
it, Steve.”
“Maybe you would,” muttered
Steve, “but I don’t intend to.”