Part 10 (2/2)
Neil turned placidly to the discomfited Cowan.
”You see, Cowan,” he said sweetly, ”one against a hundred isn't such big odds, after all, is it?”
CHAPTER IX
THE BROKEN TRICYCLE
As soon as Livingston heard the kidnapers staggering down-stairs with their burden he unlocked the bed-room door and stole to the window. He saw Neil, his head hidden by the carriage robe, thrust into the hack and driven away, and saw the conspirators for whom the vehicle afforded no room separate and disappear in the gathering darkness. Livingston's emotions were varied: admiration for Neil's harebrained but successful ruse, distaste for the sorry part taken by himself in the affair, and amus.e.m.e.nt over the coming amazement and discomfiture of the enemy were mingled. In the end delight in the frustration of the soph.o.m.ores' plan gained the ascendency, and he resolved that although Neil would miss the freshman dinner he should have it made up to him.
And so in his speech an hour or so later Fanwell Livingston told the astonished company of the attempted kidnaping and of its failure, and never before had Odd Fellows' Hall rang with such laughter and cheering.
And a little knot of soph.o.m.ores, already bewildered by the appearance of the freshman president on the scene, were more than ever at a loss.
They stood under an awning across the street, some twenty or thirty of them, and asked each other what it meant. Content with the supposed success of the abduction, they had made no attempt to prevent the dinner. And now Livingston, who by every law of nature should be five miles out in the country, was presiding at the feast and moving his audience to the wildest applause.
”But I helped put him in the hack!” Carey cried over and over.
”And I saw it drive off with him!” marveled another.
”And if that's Livingston, where's Baker, and Morton, and Cowan, and Dyer?” asked the rest. And all shook their heads and gazed bewildered through the rain to where a raised window-shade gave them occasional glimpses of ”Fan” Livingston, a fine figure in dinner jacket and white s.h.i.+rt bosom, leading the cheering.
”_Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Fletcher_!”
The group under the awning turned puzzled looks upon each other.
”Who's Fletcher? What are they cheering Fletcher for?” was asked. But none could answer.
But over in the hall it was different. Not a lad there, perhaps, but would have been glad to have exchanged places with the gallant confounder of soph.o.m.ore plots, who was pictured in most minds as starving to death somewhere out in the rain, a captive in the ungentle hands of the enemy.
However, starving Neil certainly was not. For at that very moment, seated at the hospitable board of Farmer Hutchins, he was helping himself to his fifth hot biscuit, and allowing Miss Hutchins, a red-cheeked and admiring young lady of fourteen years, to fill his teacup for the second time. From the role of prisoner Neil had advanced himself to the position of honored guest. For after the first consternation, bewilderment, and mortification had pa.s.sed, his captors philosophically accepted the situation, and under the benign influence of cold chicken and hot soda biscuits found themselves not only able to display equanimity, but to join in the laugh against themselves and to admire the cleverness displayed in their out-witting. Of the four soph.o.m.ores Cowan's laughter and praise alone rang false. But Neil was supremely indifferent to that youth's sentiments. The others he soon discovered to be thoroughly good fellows, and there is no doubt but that he enjoyed the hospitality of Farmer Hutchins more than he would have enjoyed the freshman cla.s.s dinner.
At nine o'clock the drive back to Centerport began, and as the horses soon found that they were headed toward home the journey occupied surprisingly little time, and at ten Neil was back in his room awaiting the return of Paul. To Neil's surprise that gentleman was at first decidedly grumpy.
”You might have let me into it,” he grumbled.
But Neil explained and apologized until at length peace was restored.
Then he had to tell Paul all about it from first to last, and Paul laughed until he choked; ”I--I just wish--wish I had--seen Cowan's--face when--he--found it--out!” he shrieked.
One result of that night's adventure was that the Cla.s.s of 1905 was never thereafter bothered in the slightest degree by the soph.o.m.ores; it appeared to be the generally accepted verdict that the freshmen had established their right to immunity from all molestation. Another result was that Neil became a cla.s.s hero and a college notable. Younger freshmen pointed him out to each other in admiring awe; older and more influential ones went out of their way to claim recognition from him; soph.o.m.ores viewed him with more than pa.s.sing interest, and upper-cla.s.s men predicted for him a brilliant college career. Even the Dean, when he pa.s.sed Neil the following afternoon and returned his bow, allowing himself something almost approaching a grin. Neil, however, bore his honors modestly even while acknowledging to himself the benefit of them.
He learned that his chances of making a certain society, members.h.i.+p in which was one of his highest ambitions, had been more than doubled, and was glad accordingly. (He was duly elected and underwent rigorous initiation proudly and joyfully.)
The kidnaping affair even affected his football standing, for Mills and Devoe and Simson, the trainer, spoke or looked applause, while the head coach thereafter displayed quite a personal interest in him. Several days subsequent to the affair Neil was taking dummy practise with the rest of the second eleven. Mills had appropriated the invention of a Harvard trainer, rigging the dummy with hook and eye-bolt, so that when properly tackled the stuffed canvas effigy of a Robinson player became detached from its cable and fell on to the soft loam much after the manner of a human being. But to bring the dummy from the hook necessitated the fiercest of tackling, and many fellows failed at this.
To-day Neil was one of this number. Twice the dummy, bearing upon its breast the brown R of Robinson, had sped away on its twenty-foot flight, and twice Neil had thrown himself upon it without bringing it down. As he arose after the second attempt and brushed the soil from his trousers Mills ”went for him.”
”You're very ladylike, Fletcher, but as this isn't crewel-work or crochet you'll oblige me by being so rude as to bring that dummy off.
Now, once more; put some snap into it! Get your hold, find your purchase, and then throw! Just imagine it's a soph.o.m.ore, please.”
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