CHAPTER XIIICONFESSION
A quarter of an hour later they were sitting around the bed of glowing coals busily concerned with the chops and bread and butter. The chops were decidedly underdone in the middle although beautifully crisp outside, and Nick came in for some criticism as a cook. But each of the four ate his share—it had proved rather a problem to divide three chops into four equal portions!—and so, if the proof of “the pudding is in the eating,” Nick was vindicated. They had also brought four potatoes to roast, but it was decided that life was too short and appetites too impatient to wait for them, and so Jimmy buried them in the ground, after carefully cutting them into quarters, and agreed to share the proceeds of the crop in September with the others, estimating the yield at two pecks. When they were thirsty they went down the bank, climbed into a canoe and leaned their heads into the river, thus, as Nick pointed out, getting not only a drink but a bath.
The doughnuts, now diminished to eleven, wereserved out as dessert, Jimmy, of course, receiving only two as his share, and were consumed with the peaches and cheese. Jimmy’s knife was rather the worse for its encounter with the can, but Dud kept his promise of opening the latter. They speared the peaches out with slivers, passing the can around the circle until nothing was left but the juice. Then they drank that. Afterwards they tossed the can into the river and threw pebbles at it until it floated slowly out of range. By that time it was fully twilight and the April evening was growing chill. So they built up the fire again and sat closer, huddling together for better protection from the little breeze that whispered through the dead grass and leafless boughs. For a while no one showed much inclination for conversation, but after a while Hugh let fall a murmured remark and presently they were talking desultorily of this and that, or, at least, Jimmy and Hugh and Nick were. Dud, as usual, had little to say, and finally Nick remarked:
“Shut up, Baker, and let someone else get a word in. I never heard such a chatterbox.”
Jimmy chuckled. “Isn’t he gabby?” he asked.
“Is he like this in the room, Jimmy?” Nick inquired.
“N-no, and that’s the funny part of it. When he and I are alone together he’s just full of words; can’t get them out fast enough. In company, though,he’s horribly otherwise. I’ve been trying to break him of it, but”—Jimmy sighed lugubriously—“nothing doing.”
“I dare say he believes in waiting until he has something to say,” offered Hugh. “Is that the idea, Baker?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Dud laughed uncertainly. “I never seem to think of things when—when I’m around with a crowd.”
“Well, you don’t call us a crowd, do you?” demanded Nick. “Come on now; loosen up; spring some of those scintillant remarks that Jimmy is always repeating. Know what he does, Baker? Well, he tells ’em around and sort of gets the credit for ’em himself. Of course, he says you said them, but there’s a sort of—of inflection in his voice that gives you the idea that he put you up to it or—or something; if you know what I mean, as Hugh would say.”
“Oh, Dud’s full of bright things,” said Jimmy carelessly. “Only the trouble is he doesn’t talk for publication.”
“And you’re his press agent, eh?” laughed Nick. “I’ve often wondered——” He stopped. Then he laughed softly and Jimmy was aware that he was regarding him mirthfully in the half darkness.
“What’s the bally joke?” murmured Hugh.
“Oh, nothing. That is——” Nick fell intosilence again. Then: “Most of the things Jimmy tells sound a whole lot like Jimmy,” he stated suggestively. There was a moment’s silence, broken at last by Dud.
“They are Jimmy’s,” he said quietly.
“Here, don’t try to put the blame on me!” Jimmy laughed loudly. “That’s a punk trick, Dud!”
“Honest confession is good for the soul,” said Nick lightly. “Come across, Jimmy. What’s the idea? Everyone knows you’ve been touting Baker like anything ever since Christmas recess. What is it, a conspiracy?”
Jimmy laid a twig carefully on the fire. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled.
“Oh, yes, you do, old man! We’re all friends together, you know, and nothing you say will be used against you. That all right, Baker?”
“Don’t ask him,” replied Jimmy. “He’d tell you anything. He’s incapable of the truth. Say, what’s the matter with getting back, fellows?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” said Nick. “Joking aside, Jimmy, just what is the big idea?”
“Go ahead and tell,” urged Dud. “I don’t mind. Besides, they won’t talk.”
“Oh, you!” said Jimmy in disgust. “What is there to tell? Well, all right, fellows. Only this is just between us, understand? It’s a little scheme of my own. You see, Dud here is—well, he’s just asyou see him now. He thinks big thoughts and he’s a nice boy, but he’s a graven image when he gets outside his room. Well, he likes fun as much as the rest of us but he doesn’t get it because he always thinks he isn’t wanted around. He—he’s shy, you know. At least, I suppose that’s it. I never was that way and don’t know much about it.”
Nick and Hugh laughed.
“So I said one day: ‘Dud,’ I said, ‘you do like I tell you and I’ll have you mixing in no time at all. I’ll make a regular feller of you, and it won’t cost you a cent. All you’ve got to do is what I tell you.’ So Dud said: ‘Oh, pshaw!’ or words to that effect, but agreed to try the scheme. First thing I did was to make a list of fellows he ought to know. Then we started in and got acquainted. It was hard sledding because just as soon as I got him into a bunch of fellows he’d get tongue-tied. Well, I saw that that wouldn’t do and so I began to get off the good things Dud said——”
“All of which you made up?” chuckled Nick.
“No, not all, honest. Some I did, of course. Dud didn’t deliver the goods fast enough. And—well, that’s all there is to it. Perfectly legitimate, you see, although Dud has had his doubts now and then and threatened mutiny once or twice. We’ve got on fairly well. I haven’t exactly popularized him yet, but I haven’t done so badly either. Lately he’sbeen sort of kicking over the traces and refusing to pull, but we’re progressing slowly. Now you know all about it. If either of you chaps blab I’ll punch your head.”
“So that’s it,” mused Nick. “Some scheme, eh, ’Ighness?”
“Rather!”
“I’m glad you know,” said Dud, embarrassed, “because it’s always seemed so silly for Jimmy to go around getting off a lot of funny jokes and crediting them to me, and then—then for me to just stand around and act like a dummy. I suppose we went into it as a sort of lark, or—well, I don’t know. I suppose it sounds funny to you chaps. But I wanted you to know.”
“I knew already,” said Hugh. “That is, I guessed a long time ago.”
“Honest?” exclaimed Jimmy. “Say, that’s queer, because when I asked Dud which of the fellows he’d like to——”
“Shut up, Jimmy!” implored Dud.
“Why? There’s no harm in it, you chump. I asked Dud who he’d like to know most and he said——”
“Pleasedry up, Jimmy!”
“He said Hugh Ordway. That’s why we butted in on you one night a long while ago.”
“Really? Well, you know, that’s quite a compliment,Baker. I’m afraid, though, you didn’t find me—what’s the word, Nick?”
“Responsive?”
“Well, yes. Or appreciative, I guess; that’s better. If I’d known——”
“You didn’t expect Baker to tell you, did you?” asked Nick. “If you really wanted to know a fine, respectable member of the community, though, Baker, why didn’t you select me? I can’t understand you wanting to know this cold-blooded Britisher.”
“I think we called on you next,” answered Dud, laughing.
“Did you? Well, thanks for small favors! But look here, Jimmy, it’s been fun for you, I guess, but you haven’t done Baker much good, you idiot! A fellow’s got to work out his own—his own salvation at school. No one else can do it for him. Now you let Baker hoe his own row, and——”
“That’s all you know about it,” replied Jimmy tranquilly. “Dud is on speaking terms with about every fellow worth knowing now and before I took him in hand——”
“That’s all right, but I’d rather have a half-dozen real friends than be able to say ‘Hello’ to everyone. All Baker needs is to put his chin up and—and get out and—and mix!”
“Sure!” agreed Jimmy sarcastically. “That’s all!But suppose he can’t do it? Suppose he hasn’t got the—the assurance? Then what? Why, that’s where I come in, do you see?”
“You’re an ass,” laughed Nick. “Baker, you take my advice and discharge your press agent. He’s no good. Anyway, you won’t need him any more.”
“It’s funny about being popular, or whatever you like to call it,” mused Hugh. “Funny, I mean, how some fellows are and some aren’t; and lots of times the popular chaps aren’t the ones you like best, if you know what I mean.”
“Very clear, ’Ighness; almost pellucid,” said Nick. “Just the same——”
“I don’t think I ever wanted to be what you’d call popular,” interrupted Dud. “I never could be, I’m sure. All I did want was to know more fellows and not feel quite so much out of everything. Of course, being a lower middler I dare say it’s cheeky to want to mix with fellows in the upper classes——”
“Don’t see it that way,” said Nick. “Very commendable ambition, I’d call it. Shows a desire to seek—er—refinement and wisdom, and——”
“Oh, let’s get back,” said Jimmy. “I’m freezing to death. Besides, you chaps may say what you like, but I know that without my skillful handling of the case Dud wouldn’t be sitting here tonight listening to you talk a lot of poppycock, Nick. Results arewhat count, and as a—a press agent, if you like, I’ve produced results. Now someone tell me I haven’t!”
“If you call this a result,” began Nick doubtfully.
“Of course I do! Dud has shown you two chaps that, whether he’s a brilliant conversationalist or isn’t, he’s a perfectly human sort of a chump, and you both like him a little better than you did yesterday, and tomorrow Dud can go around and mention to a few fellows that last evening he picnicked with Ordway and Blake on the river, and the fellows will think, ‘Now if Baker is in with Ordway and Nick Blake he must be all right,’ and——”
“Don’t be a rotter, Jimmy!” begged Dud.
“Rotter nothing! It’s so, isn’t it? Mind, I don’t say you will tell about it, but you could. You won’t, as a matter of fact, because you don’t play the game for all it’s worth.”
“Honest, Jimmy, you’re enough to sicken a fellow,” said Nick. “If I thought you believed what you preached, or practiced it——”
“I do,” insisted Jimmy stoutly.
“You don’t,” contradicted Dud. “Come on home before you talk any more nonsense.”
“I deny the nonsense,” replied Jimmy good-naturedly, “but I’m perfectly willing to go home. I’ve been trying to for half an hour. Help me up, someone. My legs are stiff with the cold. I say, we mustn’t forget to let the canoes get adrift, fellows.”
“Oh, rot,” said Hugh. “If we’ve got to lie, let’s lie decently.”
“Why lie at all, then?” asked Dud. “Let’s just say that we wanted to have supper on the river, and—and had it!”
“Not a bad idea,” applauded Nick. “Who knows but that we’ll get off easy that way? Faculty will be so surprised when we don’t offer any of the usual excuses that they’ll probably forget to put us on pro. Anyway, let’s try it.”
“I’ll try anything once,” murmured Jimmy, as he stretched his numbed legs. “I wonder, though, if we can see our way back? Bet you we’ll run into the bank every two minutes! Where the dickens is that canoe? I thought we left it right here. And where’s——” Jimmy stopped and turned toward the others approaching. “Say, fellows, I know an awfully good joke,” he drawled.
“What is it?” demanded Nick suspiciously.
“Get ready to laugh. All set? Well,the canoes have gone!”
“‘The canoes have gone!’”
“‘The canoes have gone!’”
“‘The canoes have gone!’”