“You did very well, I understand at cross-country running,” I suggested.
“Fair, for a new hand, but you don’t get your letter that way. Of course, I may manage to get on the track team as a distance runner, but I hate to depend on it.”
“Possibly you are setting too great a store on getting your letter,” I said. “Quite a few fellows get through school without it, and I don’t believe the fact prevents them from――”
“Bunk,” said Lamar. “You don’t get it, Jonesy. It’s Uncle Lucius I’m worrying about.”
“Is he the uncle who gave you the skates?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s good for anything in the athletic line. He’s nuts on sports of any kind. Hunts, fishes, plays polo, rides to hounds. It was he who sent me here, and he as much as told me that if I didn’t make good this year I’d have to hustle for myself next. And that means I couldn’t come back, for dad can’t afford the price.”
“I must say,” I replied indignantly, “that your Uncle Lucius has most peculiar ideas!”
“Maybe, but he has ’em,” said Lamar grimly. “And that’s why it means something to me to make this hockey team. Or it did mean something: I reckon I might as well quit hoping.”
While I had never had any sympathy for fellows who made a fetish of athletic sports and competitions, I could not help being concerned for Lamar. Of course it would serve his eccentric uncle right to be disappointed, but it did seem too bad to have Lamar miss his senior year. Pug thought just as I did, and so, taking an interest in Lamar’s case, I went over to the rink on Tuesday to see the team practice. Pug couldn’t go, on account of his cold, and he acted rather haughty when I went away, leaving him with his feet on the radiator and sneezing his head off.
I soon saw that Lamar hadn’t exaggerated much when he had said that he was not a good skater. They had a sort of game between the first team and the substitutes, and Lamar held a position next in front of Joe Kenton, who was the goal guardian――and had a hard time of it. He could skate fairly well, though most ungracefully, until some one got in his way or collided with him. Then he either fell down at once or staggered to the side of the rink and fell over the barrier. On one occasion, when he had got the puck, he started off with it and was doing quite nicely until one of the other side got in front of him. Lamar tried to dodge, and I really felt sorry for him because all the fellows on the ice and all those looking on began to laugh at him like anything. You see, he lost control of himself entirely and went spinning across the rink on one skate, with the other pointing toward the sky, his arms waving and a most horrified expression on his face. He kept right on going until he struck the barrier and then dived over it into the snow, head first.