Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories
“The setter’s? His name is Jack. I’ve had him for years. The other
little duffer, who wants to sample your trousers, but doesn’t quite
dare to, is Three Foot, so called because when he is very anxious to
get anywhere he picks up one foot and travels on the other three. Come
on up and sit down. Warm, isn’t it? Dad had to go down to New York
last night and hasn’t got back yet. I sent the car over to meet the
eleven-thirty train, but he wasn’t on it. He will be sorry not to be
here to meet you. You’ve never met the Dad, have you?”
“Once for a minute or two last Spring, over at Broadwood. But I guess
he wouldn’t remember me.”
“Don’t you believe it! Dad never forgets anything. Sit down and get
cool. Have some water or a glass of ginger ale or something?”
Kendall declined as he sank into a long rattan chair and fanned himself
with his hat. “Is that your yacht?” he asked.
“Yes――that is, it’s Dad’s. Mine is a bit smaller.” Gerald smiled.
“About a hundred and twenty-five feet shorter. We’ll try her after
dinner. I asked Harry Merrow to go along. Don’t mind, do you?”
“Not a bit. I like Merrow, although I don’t know him very well. He
spoke to me the other day after mathematics and we had a talk.”
“He’s a very decent kid. I suppose,” Gerald added with a laugh, “he’s
only a year younger than I am, but he’s always seemed a lot younger to
me.”
“I guess he’s about sixteen. You’re seventeen, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’ll be eighteen next Fall when I get to Yale. I suppose that’s
early enough, but I’d have made it this year if Dad hadn’t kept me on
a diet of tutors for so long. It was funny the way I happened to go to
Yardley. Jack was mixed up in it, weren’t you, old doggums?”
Jack, stretched on the stones at Gerald’s feet, thumped his tail
affirmatively.
“How did it happen?” asked Kendall.
“Well, over there near where you came through the gate I used to have a
playhouse when I was a kid. Once somebody gave me a fireman’s uniform
as a present; you know, red blouse and helmet and a brass trumpet and
so on. So one day I thought it would be a bright idea to have a real
fire and do a rescue stunt. So I put on my fireman’s outfit, got an ax
from the stable, shut Jack in the playhouse and set fire to it.”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Kendall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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