Читать книгу Dick Merriwell's Fighting Chance; Or, The Split in the Varsity - Burt L. Standish - Страница 6

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For the next few days, Bob Hollister saw more of Jarvis Blake than he had in as many weeks before that. The big, blond fellow took to dropping in at his rooms at all hours of the day or night, and, though he usually had some plausible reason for so doing, it might have been observed that he invariably turned the talk into the channel of football matters before he had been there five minutes.

This was not difficult to do. More often than not, he did not have to introduce the matter at all, for Bob was always ready to meet him even more than halfway. But the result was that the occasional half-hearted attempts of Hollister to do a little studying were completely frustrated.

Bob really meant well. He fully intended to take a brace and follow the advice which had been given him by Merriwell, and by the dean himself, and had it not been for these regular visits of Blake, he might possibly have succeeded in occasionally absorbing a few facts from his textbooks which would have staved off for a little while the inevitable smash; for his roommate, Jim Townsend, though a fellow who took an absorbing interest in all branches of athletics, had long ago seen whither his chum was drifting, and had resolutely refused to discuss anything pertaining to football with him during the evenings.

But Blake had no such compunctions. He seemed to take a particular delight in running in about eight o’clock with some idea about the game which had occurred to him, and about which he wanted Bob’s opinion. The natural result was that the entire evening was spent in discussion, and absolutely no studying was done.

As an equally natural consequence, Hollister continued to make a fearful showing in the classroom, accumulating zero after zero with a regularity which was appalling.

Townsend tried persuasion at first, urging his friend to take a brace before it was too late, and pointing out what the extremely unpleasant result would be if he did not. Each time Bob would acknowledge in a good-natured way that he was in the wrong, and vow that he would turn over a new leaf and do some cramming that very night.

But when the evening came and Blake appeared with his insidious questions and arguments on football matters, books would be thrown quickly aside and Hollister would enter joyfully into the discussion which generally lasted until bedtime.

Once or twice Townsend tackled Blake himself, showing him clearly how much harm his visits were doing Hollister; but the big, blond chap laughed down his arguments, treated the matter as something which Townsend’s fears had greatly exaggerated, and calmly went on his way.

Very soon Jim began to have a more than sneaking suspicion that there was some method in Blake’s behavior. The thing occurred with entirely too much regularity for it to be merely accidental, especially as the fellow had not been in the habit of coming into their rooms more than once or twice a week until very lately.

Gradually this suspicion became a certainty, and, before very long, Townsend felt sure that he had hit upon the reason for it all.

The thought made his blood boil, and he lost no time in broaching the matter to his roommate.

Bob was rather late coming in from the training table that night, but the instant he opened the door Townsend, who had been waiting impatiently for him, opened fire.

“Has it occurred to you, Bob,” he remarked, with apparent casualness, “that Blake’s been dropping in here an awful lot lately?”

Hollister threw his hat on a chair and plumped himself down on another.

“Why, I don’t know,” he said carelessly; “perhaps he has. We’ve had a bunch of things to talk over, though. He’s really got some very good ideas and has helped me a lot.”

Townsend sniffed.

“Helped you! Humph!” he exclaimed sarcastically. “Yes, I believe it!”

Hollister glanced inquiringly at him.

“What’s the matter, Jim?” he asked. “What you got against Jarv?”

“What’s he come in here every night for, I’d like to know?” Townsend demanded. “He gets you going on football, and the result is you haven’t opened a book since you had that talk with the dean, and your flunks in the classrooms are something fierce.”

Hollister’s face took on an expression of whimsical annoyance.

“Thunder, Jim!” he exclaimed petulantly. “What do you want to start preaching for? You know I’m going to settle down into a fierce grind the minute the last game is over. I just can’t find time to do it now with so much else to think about.”

“Rot!” growled Townsend. “You talk nutty! You’d have time enough if that tow-headed son of a gun didn’t come butting in every night and break you all up.”

Hollister made no reply, but his heavy brows drew down into a scowl. Townsend, too full of his grievance to notice this, presently continued his argument.

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you, Bob,” he said significantly, “how very nice it would be for Blake if you were conditioned and had to leave the team? He’s one of the best subs for your position, and there’s hardly a question but what he would step into your shoes at once. I’ll bet that’s the reason which brings him here so often, with his football talk and his sneers about there being no danger of the dean doing anything radical. He’s keeping you from boning on purpose. He’d be tickled to death to see you dropped so he could——”

“Stop!” interrupted Hollister, in an angry voice. “Just cut out that line of talk, Jim. You forget that Blake is my friend. You never liked him, I know, but that’s no reason why you should blackguard him this way.”

His face was dark, and there was an angry flash in his usually merry brown eyes; for he was a fellow who was loyal to the very core. Absolutely upright and honorable himself, it never occurred to him that there was the most remote possibility that a fellow he liked as much as he did Jarvis Blake was not entirely fair and square in every way. The idea to which his roommate had given voice was incredible. He refused to tolerate the thought for a single instant, and at once proceeded to thrust it from his mind with the greatest expedition.

Townsend lapsed into a sullen silence. He had done his best to warn his chum, but, if Bob was so thick-headed as all that, he could go his own way without hindrance.

This point of view lasted exactly ten minutes, however. By that time Jim had cooled down and was thinking over some other way by which Hollister could be brought to his senses. Fond as he was of his roommate, he could not bear the thought of his being dropped. There must be some way of making him realize the gravity of the situation.

Not for an instant did Townsend waver in his fixed belief that Blake was deliberately working to bring about Bob’s downfall so that he could step into his place on the varsity; and when the blond chap presently appeared and the usual talk commenced Jim’s temper soon reached a boiling point. He knew that if he remained in the room much longer he would have to blow off steam, and, in the present condition of affairs, that was not at all to be desired.

Consequently, some twenty minutes later, he slammed down his book, and, without a word of explanation, picked up his hat and went out.

Blake glanced up with a curious smile.

“Our friend seems to be somewhat pettish to-night,” he remarked, in a languid drawl.

Hollister flushed a little. He knew quite well why Townsend had departed, and it irritated him to think that his roommate had such a small, narrow nature as to suspect this big, bluff, frank fellow of any sort of double dealing.

“Oh, I suppose he thought of something he wanted to do,” he said, rather lamely. “But about that formation we were speaking of. I’ve doped it all out. Let me show you.”

Reaching for a piece of paper, he drew a few swift lines on it.

“See, it’s that way,” he said eagerly.

Blake leaned over him, a swift gleam of triumph in his eyes.

“Yes, that’s the idea,” he returned quietly.