Part 21 (2/2)
”Of course. Your old ice-wagon had broken down and I--”
”That's it,” interrupted Sydney, with a little embarra.s.sed laugh. ”It hadn't.”
”What hadn't? Hadn't what?”
”The machine; it hadn't broken down.”
”But I saw it,” exclaimed Neil. ”What do you mean, Syd?”
”I mean that it hadn't really broken down, Neil. I--the truth is I had pried one of the links up with a screw-driver.”
Neil stared in a puzzled way.
”But--what for?” he asked.
”Don't you understand?” asked Sydney, shame-faced. ”Because I wanted to know you, and I thought if you found me there with my machine busted you'd try to fix it; and I'd make your acquaintance. It--it was awfully dishonest, I know,” muttered Sydney at the last.
Neil stared for a moment in surprise. Then he clapped the other on the shoulder and laughed uproariously.
”Oh, to think of guileless little Syd being so foxy!” he cried. ”I wouldn't have believed it if any one else had told me, Syd.”
”Well,” said Sydney, very red in the face, but joining in the laughter, ”you don't mind?”
”Mind?” echoed Neil, becoming serious again, ”why of course I don't.
What is there to mind, Syd? I'm glad you did it, awfully glad.” He laid his arm over the shoulders of the lad on the seat. ”Here, let me push a while. Queer you should have cared that much about knowing me; but--but I'm glad.” Suddenly his laughter returned.
”No wonder that old fossil in the village thought it was a queer sort of a break,” he shouted. ”He knew what he was talking about after all when he suggested cold-chisels, didn't he?”
CHAPTER XVIII
NEIL IS TAKEN OUT
The Tuesday before the final contest dawned raw and wet. The elms in the yard _drip-dripped_ from every leafless twig and a fine mist covered everything with tiny beads of moisture. The road to the field, trampled by many feet, was soft and slippery. Sydney, almost hidden beneath rain-coat and oil-skin hat, found traveling hard work. Ahead of him marched five hundred students, marshaled by cla.s.ses, a little army of bobbing heads and flapping mackintoshes, alternately cheering and singing. Dana, the senior-cla.s.s president, strode at the head of the line and issued his commands through a big purple megaphone.
Erskine was marching out to the field to cheer the eleven and to practise the songs that were to be chanted defiantly at the game. Sydney had started with his cla.s.s, but had soon been left behind, the rubber tires of the machine slipping badly in the mud. Presently the head of the procession, but dimly visible to him through the mist, turned in at the gate, the monster flag of royal purple, with its big white E, drooping wet and forlorn on its staff. They were cheering again now, and Sydney whispered an accompaniment behind the collar of his coat:
”Erskine! Erskine! Erskine! Rah-rah-rah, rah-rah-rah, rah-rah-rah!
Erskine! Erskine! Erskine!”
Suddenly footsteps sounded behind him and the tricycle went forward apparently of its own volition. Sydney turned quickly and saw Mills's blue eyes twinkling down at him.
”Did I surprise you?” laughed the coach.
”Yes, I thought my wheel had suddenly turned into an automobile.”
”Hard work for you, I'm afraid. You should have let me send a trap for you,” said Mills. ”Never mind those handles. Put your hands in your pockets and I'll get you there in no time. What a beast of a day, isn't it?”
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