Ralph Barbour - Left Half Harmon

“Look here, you – you crazy loon! Do you mean that you’re going around telling the fellows that you’ve got me locked up here?”

“Well, I’ve got to tell them something, haven’t I? I can’t say – ”

“Don’t say anything! I don’t want your money! I wouldn’t stay here if you paid me a thousand dollars a week!”

“You mean that?” asked Joe dubiously.

“Of course I mean it! Now let me out!”

“Well, leaving money out of it altogether, Harmon, and all on the level: What’s the matter with going to school here instead of over there?”

“Why should I?” asked Harmon exasperatedly. “I started for Kenly and that’s where I’m going. You can keep me here all night and all tomorrow and all – ”

“But that’s not reasonable,” protested Joe mildly. “Here we’re giving you a chance to – ”

“Reasonable! Ha! Do you call what you’re doing reasonable?”

“It may not look so, but it sure is! Hang it, man, we’re trying to save you from making a perfectly rotten mistake! Look here, have you paid your first quarter over there?”

“I have not, but that’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Of course it has!” returned Joe in triumph. “You aren’t a student there until you’ve registered and paid your first quarter bill! All right! Just pay your money here, old man: the tuition’s the same! What do you say?”

“ No! ”

“Well, I’ve said all I can think of,” replied Joe despondently. “You think it over awhile, Harmon. There’s no hurry: you can register any time this evening before nine and tomorrow morning before twelve. We’ll be back after a bit. You sort of think it over, eh?”

“I don’t need to think it over! I haven’t the least idea of doing anything so crazy! Come on and open the door now, and let’s have an end to this – this silly nonsense!”

But there was no reply. Instead, there came to the captive the faint sounds of retreating footsteps. He listened suspiciously. Perhaps it was only a hoax, perhaps Myers was still outside. After a minute he called.

“That doesn’t fool me!” he said. “I know you’re still there!”

But there was no answer, and when another minute had gone by he realized that they had actually gone and left him there alone!

The prisoner thrust his hands in his pockets and made a frowning survey of his cell. From the point of view of his captors it appeared an ideal apartment. There was but one door and that was firmly locked and plainly invulnerable. The windows were beyond reach and, in any case, too small to crawl through, and what had once been an opening admitting to the belfry above had been long since boarded up. He kicked tentatively at the door and might just as well have kicked at any other place in the four surrounding walls so far as results were concerned. There was no furniture, not even a chair. Listening, he heard nothing save, once, the distant shriek of a locomotive.

After a few minutes of hopeless inspection of the place, Harmon shrugged his shoulders and seated himself on the floor with his back to the wall and acted on Joe Myers’ advice to think it over. But thinking it over didn’t enlighten him much. That his captors really meant business was evident, but why they had gone to so much trouble was a mystery. None of the reasons they had given seemed sufficient. That they had proceeded to such lengths merely to save him from the direful fate of becoming a Kenly fellow was too improbable. That they seriously wanted his services on the football team was just as unlikely: or, at least, it was unlikely that they would value those services highly enough to indulge in kidnapping as a means of securing them! No, there was something else, something that didn’t appear. Perhaps Kenly had once enticed an Alton boy away and Alton was trying to get even. Or perhaps —

There was a sound beyond the door and Harmon stopped conjecturing and listened. A voice came to him that was not Joe Myers’.

“I say, Harmon!”

“Hello!” The prisoner tried to keep his tone hostile, but he wasn’t altogether successful, for he was becoming tired of isolation and silence.

“Joe sent me up to read something out of the school catalogue to you. Can you hear all right?”

“Yes, go ahead and read,” answered Harmon scornfully.

And Martin Proctor, sitting on the top step outside, read. He read at some length, too. He started in with a list of Alton Academy graduates who had attained national prominence. The list included a Secretary of State, two Chief Justices, three United States Senators, numerous congressmen and a wealth of smaller fry. When he had finished Harmon inquired: “No Presidents or Vice-Presidents?”

“I haven’t graduated yet,” replied Martin cheerfully. “Now I’ll read you something from the report of the Board of Overseers.”

“What for? What do I care about the Board of Overseers?”

“Joe told me to.”

When that was done Martin paused for comment, got none and began a flattering description of the Carey Gymnasium. Inside, Harmon leaned against the wall and grinned. A brief summary of scholarships and a statement to the effect that the Academy roster of year before last represented thirty-nine states of the Union, two territories and three foreign countries completed the programme.

“Joe said I was to ask you if you’d made up your mind,” announced Martin then.

“You tell him to give you an evening paper to read the next time,” replied Harmon.

“Say, why don’t you?” asked Martin persuasively. “Honest, Harmon, you’ll like Alton a heap better than Kenly.”

“You go back and ask Myers what he’s going to say to the faculty when I get out of here and tell my story!”

“Oh, we’ve got that fixed all right,” chuckled Martin. “Well, I’ve got to be getting down to supper.”

“Hold on there! When do I eat?”

“I don’t know. You see, if we opened the door to give you anything you might try to get out!”

“You think so, do you?” asked Harmon grimly. “Well, you’ve got more sense than I thought you had! How long does supper run?”

“Until seven. It’s ten minutes past six now.”

“Listen, Porter – ”

“Proctor’s my name, old chap.”

“Proctor, then. Look here, now. If you’ll open that door and let me out I’ll keep quiet about this. You can tell the others that – that I asked to see that catalogue and that you went to hand it in and I knocked you down.”

“Yes, and they’d believe it, wouldn’t they?” asked Martin scornfully. “Think of something better, please! Besides, I’m just as much interested in saving you from your career of crime as they are, Harmon. Why, I’d never forgive myself if I left one turn unstoned! We’re trying to save you from yourself, old chap!”

“You’d much better be thinking about saving yourselves,” answered Harmon, laughing.

“Did you laugh then?” called Martin eagerly.

“Sure. It struck me as funny. You’ll see the joke later.”

“I’ll send Joe up. He said if you sounded like you were in a good temper – ”

The lessening sounds of footsteps hurrying down the stairs finished the sentence and Harmon chuckled. After all, it was funny, the whole thing; and he might as well laugh as frown. When it came right down to brass tacks there was no very good reason why he shouldn’t change his allegiance to Alton Academy. At the present moment it meant just as much to him as Kenly did: more in fact, for he had seen Alton and hadn’t seen Kenly. And he liked what he had seen. It might very well be that Kenly wasn’t nearly so good a school, even discounting the biased boastings of his captors. Of course his parents expected him to go to Kenly, and so did his brother, but the choice had been his and he saw no reason why he hadn’t a perfectly good right to choose over. It wasn’t too late, for he had not registered at Kenly and the first quarter’s tuition was still in his pocket. Possibly his brother would be slightly peeved —