tommy lupton had made up his mind to knock the block off guy vanton, and no suitable pretext or occasion offering, he went around to the vanton house one day and rather awkwardly invited the objectionable guy to take a walk with him.
guy vanton, with a flicker of surprise which changed quickly into a look of pleasure, accepted the invitation. the two boys started north toward the woods encircling a small pond. they said little to each other at first. tommy was concerned only to reach a small clearing in the woods, a place carpeted with pine needles and reasonably secure from intrusion by passersby. guy was puzzled by mr. lupton’s stride and a feeling that this was somehow less a pleasure stroll than an errand.
“you’re almost through high school, aren’t you?” asked mr. vanton.
“year more,” returned tommy, going rapidly ahead on the wood path.
“shall you go to college after that?”
“cornell,” tommy informed him.
“for the engineering course?” guessed guy amicably.
“for the crew,” corrected tommy.
“i’ve never rowed,” guy commented, finding it difficult to make conversation at the pace they were[115] travelling. “except a little, on the seine near paris, just for sport.”
“bragging of where he’s been,” thought the grim young man beside mr. vanton. “i’ll give him something to brag about!” aloud he said: “ever box?”
“no. i’ve had fencing lessons. i used to wrestle a little. nothing else much.”
they had gained the clearing. tommy moved to the centre of it and then turned and faced his companion.
“i’ve brought you up here to tell you something,” he began, white-faced and with blazing eyes. “you—you’ve got to have nothing to do with—with her—with mermaid,” tommy found it distasteful to name the woman in the case, “from now on or i’ll knock your block off. i think i’ll just do it, anyway,” shouted tommy, his fury, the accumulation of weeks of suffering, breaking forth. “you don’t box, but you say you can wrestle. i’m going to hit you and you can clinch and we’ll see who comes out on top! being a—a damn foreigner i suppose you won’t fight fair, but if you try biting or gouging i’ll get you, don’t you forget it!”
guy vanton, open-mouthed with surprise at the first few words, had reddened with anger. his curious, wild-animal eyes, ordinarily so shy, had lost their light and were fixed steadily but unseeingly on the boiling young man confronting him. the colour left his face. he lowered his eyes, stepped back several paces, muttered, “en garde,” and awaited tommy’s onset.
[116]with a desperate sort of roar tommy charged. his blood was up, his head was down. his fist shot out but only grazed guy’s cheek. at the same instant his head struck his antagonist’s collarbone, he felt himself caught under the shoulders, and before he could steady himself he was on his back on the ground. young mr. vanton made no effort to keep him pinned there. tommy rose and attacked again.
this time he flung himself on the other boy, head up and ready to clinch. but he clutched the air. something slipped under his arm and caught his leg, throwing him from his balance. as he staggered he was picked up and thrown bodily a few feet through the air, landing on his shoulder.
a sense of awful lameness came over tommy as he picked himself up. unsteadily he planted a fist where his opponent’s breathing apparatus should have been, but wasn’t. he felt his head caught in a vise and shoved downward with such violence as to make it seem likely it had been permanently detached from his body. shoulders fitted themselves into the extended curve of tommy’s right arm; he half spun about like a tee-totum, and then, having four legs instead of the usual two, at right angles to each other, tommy was uncertain which way he faced. all four legs gave way under him, his face brushed the pine needles, he turned a low somersault and found himself lying on the soft and scented earth, looking with a blurred vision at the tops of the[117] pine trees and a patch of blue sky. they faded from sight after a second. tommy was senseless.
water trickling down his face awakened him, water brought by his late antagonist. young mr. vanton’s black hair was in disarray, his normally white face looked whiter than ever, and his strange eyes were filled with anxiety.
“tommy!”
closing his eyes for a moment to consider whether this referred to the late tommy lupton or to himself, the young man with the wetted face decided that he would take the chance that it was intended for him. he opened his eyes again, sat up with a painful effort, looked at guy vanton, and smiled—a sad, calm smile such as befitted the victim of a mistake. but guy vanton seemed to think he had made no mistake. he flung himself on the ground beside the warrior and put his arm about the warrior’s shoulders. the shoulders gave a sharp twinge, but the warrior, with an effort, reached up his arm and crooked it reciprocally about the shoulders of the black-haired boy. so intertwined they sat side by side on the pine needles for a moment, and then tommy struggled to his feet, the arm of the other helping him. after a moment of dizziness tommy disengaged himself and held out his hand.
“shake!”
they shook. young mr. vanton exhibited no air of triumph. instead, he seemed actually dejected. the[118] two, as by common consent, took the homeward path. tommy burst out: “you licked me fair and square. i—i’d like to be friends. i—i guess you’re all right. mermaid——”
tommy stopped. for the first time it struck full upon him that though he had done all that lay in him to settle matters and settle them right, matters, at any rate the all-important matter, remained much as they were before.
mr. vanton broke in: “i want to be friends, too. we ought to be, hadn’t we, after this?”
a point bothered mr. lupton. “you haven’t made me take back what i said about you.”
looking down at the ground mr. vanton flushed and said: “oh, well, you didn’t mean it. it—it’s not important i’m not a foreigner, you know. i was born in san francisco. i keep dropping into french. you just poke me when i do it. and about—her——” mr. vanton broke off, seeming to find the exact words difficult. then he went on: “you see, it isn’t anything. she likes to hear me talk about france and san francisco and she’s learning a little french. and—there’s nothing to it, except that i don’t know any one here and she’s company.”
a doubt deep in mr. lupton found expression. “i s’pose she won’t want anything to do with me after this.”
“i won’t tell her,” asserted the other boy. he[119] hesitated, then said: “tommy, you know she thinks an awful lot of you. and, anyway, she’s got to decide for herself.”
to this mature and final view old, young mr. lupton assented. “of course! i guess it’s not how we feel about her, but how she feels. well, i don’t care if i do,” concluded mr. lupton, recklessly, taking one of mr. vanton’s cigarettes. he lit it, finding the flavour much unlike a pipe of cornsilk. it was not his, however, to pronounce the taste inferior in the face of the world’s judgment. tommy puffed and felt a strange sense of elevation. “that was a dandy fight you put up,” he conceded. “say, where did you get all that stuff? will you show me how?” mr. vanton agreed. “i’ve forgotten a lot,” he confessed. “i used to have a japanese wrestler when i was a kid in san francisco, and later i had some lessons in paris.” mr. lupton had ceased to listen, however. the curing of turkish tobacco was suddenly distasteful to him. after a while he apologized: “you pretty well knocked me out,” and managed an admirable smile. they walked back to blue port together and tommy did not even wince at an allusion by the shy-eyed mr. vanton to the fact that mr. vanton had a longing to become a writer some day. “i scribble a lot now. i even write verse,” explained mr. vanton, his innocent brown eyes glancing for a moment into tommy’s more worldly blue ones. tommy did not smile or shout. his allegiance to the new friendship[120] was complete and unequivocal; and besides, there was coming into his mind a recognition of certain impalpable things which a girl always fell for and which he, tommy lupton, had not to offer. travel, a foreign language, manners that were polite without being stuck-up, an ability to talk, and a gift of expression; a sort of good looks, too, in spite of the snub nose and the pallor; sophistication extending to the consumption of turkish cigarettes; and a knack of writing poetry. tommy, who ached not a little, felt a spiritual depression. what had he to offer mermaid in comparison with these endowments? he had a good spirit, however; he was a sport and quite ready to exclaim, “may the best man win!” and guy had won in a fair fight, and he and guy were friends.
a feeling that school was intolerable crept over young mr. lupton. he longed to be with his father at the coast guard station on the beach where, in the fortunate event of a shipwreck, he might alone and single-handed save life.
none of these thoughts seemed to fill the mind of guy vanton, who was talking desultorily about san francisco and telegraph hill and the presidio and the mission; paris, boating on the seine, and streets with meaningless french names. the two boys parted in front of the vanton house, guarded by tall evergreens, a ship stranded in a forest of christmas trees. to and fro on the veranda, walking with short steps and heavy[121] tread, paced captain vanton, a mysterious santa claus wearing enormous sidewhiskers.
