The Winning Touchdown/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
"Hello! What's up?" demanded Sid, as he and Phil, about to leave their apartment, were almost hurled from their feet when Tom burst in. "What in the name of the Gaelic Wars ails you, Tom? Has some one else left the team; or is the college on fire?"
"Yes, why this unseemly haste?" came from Phil, as he sank back on the sofa and endeavored to recover his breath, which was almost at the vanishing point because of the suddenness of his chum's advent.
"Haste? I guess you'd be in a hurry if you just heard what I did!" exploded Tom. "I'm on the track of our chair! What's the matter with you fellows, anyhow? I thought you were coming out and help me get on the trail of it."
"Oh, Sid had to look at Miss Harrison's picture before he could venture out," replied Phil, with a mocking grin at his chum. And then he dodged to escape a book, while Tom murmured:
"You old misogynist! And me working like a detective to get on the trail of our beloved chair! What kept you in, Phil?"
"Couldn't get his tie fixed to suit him," responded Sid, thus getting one in on the quarter-back, who was rather noted for his taste in neck scarfs.
"Well, come on, now!" urged the pitcher.
"We've got time enough to get to town and back before the 'eats,' and if we go now Proc. Zane won't be so apt to spot us."
"What's the game?" asked Sid.
"Second-hand Shylock has our chair," explained Tom briefly, as he told of the information Wallops had given him. "We'll go talk to him like a Dutch uncle, and make him tell how he dared come into our rooms while we were at practice. Come on!"
"The nerve of Komsky!" cried Phil. "I'm with you," and the three lads hurried from the college, crossed the campus, and were headed for a trolley that would take them to the village. They saw the car coming, and were about to sprint for it, when Tom became aware of the figure of a small, fussy little man striding toward them from behind a row of trees, holding up his hand as if to command a halt.
"Zane!" gasped the pitcher.
"The proctor," added Phil, in a whisper. "He hasn't any right to stop us now!"
But whether the official had the right or not, he was evidently going to exercise it, and our heroes thought it better to obey.
"Well, young gentlemen," began the proctor, as he strode up to the trio, "you are evidently going to the village."
"Yes, sir," answered Tom, meekly.
"There goes the car," remarked Sid in a low voice. "There won't be another for half an hour, and we'll sure be late for grub. Hang Zane, anyhow."
"May I ask how long you intend to remain?" went on the obnoxious college official.
"Not very long," answered Phil. "We are going on an errand. We didn't know it was against the rules not to leave the college grounds in daylight, Mr. Zane." It was a sarcastic reference to the many somewhat childish rules the proc. was in the habit of framing up from time to time.
"There is no rule prohibiting students from leaving the grounds in daylight, Mr. Clinton," said the proctor, severely, "but the reason I stopped you is that I wish to point out that if you go to town now you will hardly be back in time for supper, and that means that you will probably get a meal in Haddonfield. Also, there is no set rule against that, but Dr. Churchill does not like it. Staying to supper in the village might mean that you would stay later, and I need hardly point out that there is a rule about being out after hours. That is all," and the little proctor walked stiffly away.
"Well, wouldn't that get your goat!" murmured Tom, when the official was beyond hearing.
"I should say so; and also frizzle your back teeth," added Sid.
"Shall we go?" asked Phil, doubtfully.
"Of course," asserted Tom. "And we'll fool Zane, too. It won't take us long to have it out with Komsky. Then we can go to one of those quick-lunch places, have a bite, and get back to college in plenty of time before locking up. We can arrange to have an expressman bring back the chair."
"Good!" exclaimed Phil. "I was afraid you'd propose that we lug it back on the car, and while I'd do a good deal to get it again, I think we'd look foolish toting it home in our arms."
"Afraid of meeting some girls, I suppose," sneered Tom.
"Say, supposing Komsky hasn't got it," suggested Sid, while Phil blushed.
"Perish the thought!" cried the pitcher. "We've got to get our chair back, and if that Shylock hasn't it some of the other second-hand dealers in town have."
They strolled along, talking of the chair, the chances for a good football team, and many other college matters until the next car came, when they hopped aboard, and were soon in Haddonfield.
"Vell, young gentlemans, vot is it? Somedings nice vor de college room, ain't it? Yes! No? Vell, Isaac Komsky has it vot effer you like, und cheap! So help me gracious, I lose money on everyt'ing I sell! Now, vot it is?"
Thus spoke the old second-hand dealer, when our three friends entered. Eagerly he had come forward, rubbing his hands and wagging his long, matted beard, while from under bushy eyebrows he peered at them with eager orbs.
"We're looking for a chair, Komsky," said Tom, brusquely. "A nice, easy, soft, comfortable chair that we can sit in."
"Oh, so! An easy chair is it? Vell, I haf many, und cheap! It is a shame about de cheapness. Look, here is one, vot is so—vot you call—easy, dot it vould make you schleepy efen ven you looket at it, ain't it?"
He thrust forward a most uncomfortable wooden rocker, with gaudy cushions on the seat and back. The cushions were in Randall colors—yellow and maroon—and the chair had evidently been sold by some student, either because he needed the money or because he could afford better furniture.
"No, that's not the kind we want," said Tom, whose eyes were roving about the cluttered-up shop. He and his chums had decided on the course of pretending to want to buy a chair, with the idea that if Komsky had taken theirs, by hook or crook, he would be more apt to show it if he saw prospective customers, than if he knew they had come demanding their rights. "We want an easier chair," went on Tom.
"Oh, an easier vun? Den I haf it. See!" and he brought to light a big Turkish rocker, that was in the last stages of decay.
Meanwhile Sid and Phil had been strolling about, leaving Tom to engage Komsky in conversation. The two looked in many corners, and peered under heaps of furniture, but they did not see their chair. Nor, if the dealer had it, did he show any desire to produce it. Tom looked at rocker after rocker that was brought out, and at last, convinced that his method was likely to prove a failure, he boldly stated the case, and demanded to know, whether by mistake or otherwise, the dealer had taken their old relic.
The surprise of Mr. Komsky was pitiful to observe. He all but tore out his beard, and called upon his ancestors as far back as the sixteenth generation to witness that he had not even seen the chair. He was an honest man, he was a poor man, he was a man born to poverty and under an unlucky star, but never, never, never! not if you were to give him a million dollars, would he take a chair from a student's room, without permission.
"For vy should I, ven I can buys dem efery day?" he demanded, with a pathetic gesture of his forward-thrust hands.
"Well, I guess it isn't here," spoke Tom, regretfully, when they had exhausted all the possibilities. "Yet you were at college to-day, Komsky."
"Vy, sure I vos at der college to-day. Nearly efery veek I am there, ain't it? Yet I have not your chair."
It was evident that he was telling the truth. He did not have the chair then, though he might have had it, and have sold it to some other student, perhaps one from Boxer Hall or Fairview, for those lads also patronized the secondhand dealers, and Komsky was one of the largest.
"Cæsar's grandmother!" cried Tom, in dismay, as this possibility suggested itself, "just suppose Langridge or some of those chaps had our chair! Say, maybe Langridge put up the game!"
"Hardly possible," asserted Phil. "Come on, we'll have a look in some of the other shops, then we'll get grub and hurry back. I think I saw drops of blood in Zane's eye."
"He sure would like to get our names down in his little book," said Sid.
But a round of the other second-hand dealers, where inquiries were made, developed nothing. There were many easy chairs on sale, but that of our heroes was not to be seen, and sorrowfully they returned to the college.
It was long past the regular supper time, but they had satisfied their hunger in Haddonfield. And, in spite of their troubles—their worriment over the chair, and the mix-up that was sure to result in the football team—they had managed to eat a good meal.
They saw Proctor Zane, as they strolled up over the campus, and the official glanced sharply at them.
"He's just wishing we were coming in late," declared Tom.
"I believe you," assented Phil. They entered their room, stumbling in the darkness over books and chairs, for they never took the trouble to put their apartment to rights.
"I say, strike a light, some one!" exclaimed Tom, rubbing his shins where they had come in contact with a chair.
There was a click as Phil turned the electric switch, and the incandescent glowed. For a moment the three chums stood in the middle of the room, gazing at each other.
"Doesn't it seem lonesome without the old chair," spoke Phil at length.
"Sort of makes the room look bigger though," declared Sid, as he threw himself on the sofa. It was a poor consolation at best.
"I can't imagine what has become of it," said Tom, as he proceeded to get into some lounging clothes.
"Well, now for some boning, and maybe we'll forget our troubles," went on Phil, as he scattered a pile of books, looking for his own.
"Are you going to the football meeting tonight?" asked Tom, as he finished a hurried toilet, for a session of the squad had been called late that afternoon to consider the loss of Kerr and Molloy.
"I may come over later," spoke Phil. "I think the best thing we can do is to"
He paused suddenly, and glanced quickly toward the shelf that served as a mantle. The gaze of his chums followed. The room seemed suddenly to become oppressively still. They could almost hear each other breathing. Then the same thought came to all three.
"The clock!" they exclaimed in a tragic chorus.
"It's gone!" gasped Tom.
"Vanished!" added Phil, staring at the vacant space as though unable or unwilling to believe the evidence of his eyesight.
"Another mysterious disappearance," exploded Sid, and then Tom remarked in significant tones:
"I guess we'll have to chain the sofa if we want to keep that!"