Ralph Barbour - Right End Emerson

“Better stock up with chewing gum,” suggested Ned Richards. “From what I see, I guess that’s about all those High School girls ever eat!”

“You’re jealous because you didn’t think of it yourself,” retorted Cal untroubledly.

“Hope you get more trade than those fellows who opened the sporting goods store are getting,” said Billy Crocker. He was a rather large, though not heavy, youth, with black hair and thick eyebrows that met above his nose. The latter, being beak-like, gave him an unattractively parrotish look. Billy lived at home, in the town, but spent most of his evenings at the Academy. He wasn’t especially popular, and fellows sometimes found themselves wondering why it was he was so frequently in evidence at such gatherings as to-night’s. The explanation, however, was very simple. Billy Crocker took his welcome for granted and didn’t wait for a formal invitation. Being a football player, he affected the company of the football crowd, and although many protested him as a nuisance he was allowed to tag along. “I’ve looked in there twenty times,” continued Billy, not too truthfully, “and I’ve never seen any one there yet. They’re a couple of nuts!”

“As a member of the Alton Academy Merchants’ Association,” began Cal protestingly.

“They must have some money they don’t need,” interrupted Ned Richards enviously. “I heard they’d put a thousand dollars into the thing.”

“A thousand dollars!” scoffed Billy Crocker. “More like a hundred! Why, those fellows haven’t any money, Ned. They’re on their uppers. Patterson wears clothes that were made when Grant took Richmond!”

“What scandal is this?” murmured Jimmy. “Who’s Grant?”

“Well, that’s what I heard,” replied Ned coldly. “Of course, if the gentlemen are personal friends of yours, Crocker – ”

“They’re not, thanks,” answered Billy emphatically. “I don’t – ”

“They’re friends of mine, though,” cut in Harley. “At least, Emerson is. And I wish him luck. He’s got courage, that chap. Guess it’s so about his being poor, though, for we came across him two or three weeks ago waiting on table at a hotel at Pine Harbor. He was a good waiter, too.”

Jimmy rather wished that Harley hadn’t told that, for, while he had only admiration for the deed, he doubted that Ned and Cal and Billy Crocker would view it in the same way. However, no one looked other than faintly interested; no one, that is, save Billy Crocker. Billy laughed scornfully. “Those fellows would do anything to get a bit of money,” he said. “It was Patterson who wore Irv Ross’s suit up and down West street a couple of years ago, with a placard on him like a sandwich man, and all for a dollar and a half. You fellows remember.”

“Yes, but it was Stacey Ross’s suit, and not Irv’s,” said Stanley. “Girtle charged Stacey ten or twelve dollars more than he charged another chap for the same thing. Girtle said it was because the other fellow paid cash and Stacey didn’t, but Stacey was mad clean through and got Patterson to put the suit on and walk up and down in front of the store with a placard saying ‘Bought at Girtle’s.’ Of course the clothes hung all over Patterson – ”

“That’s all ancient history, Stan,” said Harley.

“Well, what I was getting at is that, as I remember it, this fellow did it for a joke and wasn’t paid for it.”

“He certainly was paid,” exclaimed Billy. “I know!”

“He ought to have been,” remarked Ned. “Anyway, Stan, there’s no sense in arguing with Crocker about what his friends do or did. He’s in the know, aren’t you, Crocker?”

“I told you they aren’t my friends,” answered Billy gruffly. “I don’t know either of them, except by sight.”

“Then why,” asked Ned, yawning, “persist in talking about ’em?”

“I only said they wouldn’t make that store pay,” replied the other defensively. “And they won’t.”

“Say, Crocker,” inquired Jimmy, “isn’t it your father or uncle or something who runs the hardware store?”

“Father,” said Billy in a tone that suggested reticence.

“Thought so. Maybe you’re a bit prejudiced then. You folks sell the same line of stuff as Emerson and Patterson do, eh? Guess you don’t like the idea of a rival almost next door.”

“All those fellows will sell won’t affect my father any!”

“Say!” This explosive exclamation came from Stanley, who suddenly sat up very straight on Ned’s bed and fixed Billy with a baleful glare. “Say, is that your store, Crocker?”

“My father’s,” answered Billy with dignity.

“Well, say, let me tell you something then. You sell the punkest stuff that ever came out of the ark! Honest, Crocker, you do! Say, if Patterson’s clothes were made by Grant at Richmond, or whatever it was you said, the baseball gloves you take good money for were made by Mrs. Cleopatra the day she got bitten by the snake!”

“They’re just as good as you can get anywhere,” protested Billy indignantly. “Baseball gloves aren’t made as well as they used to be, since the War, and if you got a bum one you ought to have brought it back, Hassell, and – ”

“There wasn’t enough of it to bring back,” said Stanley grimly, “after the third time I put it on! And I’m blamed if I see what the War’s got to do with baseball gloves. The trouble with you folks is that you got stocked up about twenty years ago and the moths have got busy!”

The rest, with the notable exception of Billy Crocker, were laughing and chuckling at Stanley’s tirade. Billy was flushed and sulky. “We can’t help it,” he muttered, “if the sewing on a glove gives way sometimes. That’s the way they come to us, and we buy the best we can find – ”

“Listen,” said Stanley impressively. “The sewing was the only part of that glove that held together! It was the leather that was rotten, and if I – ”

“Have you still got it?” demanded Billy, goaded to desperation. “If you have, bring it to the store and I’ll see that you get another.”

“Of course I haven’t got it,” answered Stanley disgustedly. “I bought it last spring, and the last I saw of it, it was hanging over the wire netting back of the home bench, where I pitched the blamed thing!”

“Well, the next time, you bring it back,” said Billy. “We don’t want any one dissatisfied.”

“There ain’t going to be no next time,” answered Stanley significantly. He subsided on the pillows again. “No hard feelings, Crocker,” he added apologetically, “but your store certainly does carry a bum lot of athletic goods.”

There was more laughter, and Billy decided to join in, which he did with what grace he might, and the troublesome subject lapsed.

Crocker left some twenty minutes later with Cal Grainger, although the latter showed no overmastering desire for his company, and when the door was closed Stanley asked: “What do you see in that fellow, Mac?”

“How do you mean?” asked Harley. “He isn’t my pal. He comes to see Ned.”

“What?” demanded his room-mate. “Gosh, I never asked him here! I thought maybe you had. I’m not keen for him, let me tell you. I’ve hardly spoken a hundred words to him, and then only on the field, and did you hear him calling me Ned? Cheeky bounder! I was tickled to death when you pitched into him about your old glove, Stan. He was as sore as a poisoned pup!”

“ Old glove!” exclaimed Stanley, in arms again. “It was a new glove, gosh ding it! And I wore it just three times and – ”

“Oh, sweet odors of Araby!” groaned Jimmy. “You’ve gone and got him started again! Listen, you fellows! I have to hear the history of that glove ten times a day, and it does seem that when I get out in society, as ’twere, I might – might – ”