Rodney left the room close on the heels of Kitty and burst into Jack Billings’s room. Only Tom Trainor was there, Tom bending over a book with both hands clutching desperately at his hair.
“Busy,” grunted Tom, without looking around.
“Don’t care if you are,” answered Rodney. “You aren’t too busy to hear some news.”
“Yes, I am. Don’t want to hear any news. Get out, Rod!”
“Nothing is news about Kitty,” scoffed Tom. But he stopped tearing his hair and looked around. “What is it?”
“Whoops!” Tom’s chair went over with a crash and he flew to the hall. “Fellows! Pete! Stacey! Everybody this way!”
“Shut up!” came a wail from the closed door of Pete Greenough’s room. But Stacey answered, and he and Tad tumbled into the hall. “What’s up? Where’s the fire?” asked Tad.
“News, fellows! Glorious news! Kitty――――”
Pete, who had opened his door and stuck his head out, groaned and started back.
“Hold on, Pete! Wait till you hear it! Kitty’s going to play football!”
There was a moment of intense silence. Then shrieks of delight broke forth, and Tom and Tad clasped each other ecstatically and danced along the hall. At that moment Jack Billings and Warren Hoyt appeared on the stairs, and the news was broken to them very gently by five voices shouting in unison. After that they piled into Jack’s room and laughed and joked to their heart’s content.
“I know where I’m going to be to-morrow afternoon at three-thirty,” announced Tad. “Right on the sideline, fellows, where I can see it all!”
“That’s where we’ll all be!” gurgled Tom. “And he’s going down to Porgan’s after school to-morrow to buy an outfit. Let’s all go along and help, fellows!”
But Jack demurred. “That would be too strong,” he said. “It is funny, but we don’t want to hurt old Kitty’s feelings. It’s going to be funny enough anyway, without that.”
“That’s so,” Stacey agreed. “Besides,” and he smiled in his quiet way, “he might take offence and quit then and there.”
Further discussion was halted by the sound of steps on the stairway. The fellows grinned at each other and Warren Hoyt called: “Is that you, Kitty? What’s this Merrill’s telling us?”
Kitty appeared at the doorway, breathing deeply and perspiring freely, and observed them anxiously through his spectacles.