CHAPTER VII TROMPET SHRUGG The recognition appeared to be mutual. As the teacher's cold glance met Garry's questioning one the eyes of the former hardened with a gleam of antagonism. The interchange lasted only a second, but it was long enough to assure Garry that it would be a difficult task to erase from the mind of Trompet Shrugg, teacher of English, the memory of that muddy football and the indignity to which the incident had subjected him. "I'm in Dutch, all right," the boy thought ruefully, as he took a seat between Nick Danter and Bill Sherwood. "That old boy looked as though he could hold a grudge forever. Just my luck that I have to be under him during my first term in Lenox High!" Garry glanced at Nick and noticed that he, too, was eyeing the teacher with interest. Evidently Nick remembered that fateful day in the lot and was connecting the instructor with the tall, stiff man who had been on his way to "Mr. Elliny's house." Catching Garry's glance, Nick winked dolefully, while his lips framed the words: "Tough luck." Garry nodded and would have telegraphed an answer, had not a peculiar expression in the eyes of his chum warned him to watch the teacher. Glancing toward the desk, Garry found the eyes of Trompet Shrugg fixed upon him in a disapproving stare. Garry met the stare steadily though respectfully, and in a moment the English teacher turned away to speak to one of the other boys. "All set to pick on me," said Garry to himself resentfully. "He seems to think I kicked the pigskin at him on purpose. It begins to look as though I'd have to watch my step while I'm in this class, anyway." The English period dragged interminably, with Professor Shrugg addressing the boys in his painfully precise English, outlining the course for the term, and declaring in no uncertain manner what would be expected of the boys in his classes. There was a sigh of genuine relief when the bell sounded through the hall announcing the end of that period and the commencement of the next. When finally the work of the day was over and the boys were strapping their new books together, his chums expressed their solicitude over the outlook for Garry. "Gee, Garry, that sure is hard luck about old Shrugg," condoled Ted Dillingham. "It is, for a fact," agreed Garry. "That old boy has it in for me, all right. I could tell it by the way he looked at me." "I see where you'll have to be a model for all the rest of us roughnecks," grinned Nick. "You will have to be so very, very good that Shrugg will stop suspecting you of secret plots against his health and happiness." "And shirt front," added Rooster. "I guess from the look of him, we'll all have to walk as though we were treading on eggs. That guy has an eye like a snake's." "I bet he'll be about as popular as one, too," predicted Bill.