Left Half Harmon

  CHAPTER XV

  MARTIN CALLS QUITS

  From his own table, by craning his neck, Willard could see Martin's,and it was apparent that the latter was not making much of a meal. Bob,who sat at his left, was plainly sympathetic and solicitous: Willardcould see Bob passing the spinach and urging his neighbor to eat,and could see Martin's dismal refusal. Perhaps it was because Martinpartook only of a little soup and a dish of rice pudding that themalady returned to him less severely after the noon meal. Willard kepthis promise and procured a small bottle of soda-mint tablets, and allthe rest of the day Martin's expression was one of supreme disgust ashe continuously dissolved the tablets in his mouth. The remedy at leastallowed him to take an active part in practice, which was fortunatesince he was given a try-out at left tackle. He was a bit slow atfirst, but, with Mr. Cade constantly urging, he showed quite a lot ofspeed toward the end of the practice. He confessed to Willard laterthat he might have done better if the onion smell hadn't bothered him."It came on in the locker room," he said. "I didn't notice it until Iwas changing. Then I got it strong and it stayed with me all the time.I--I get it yet, but it's not so bad."

  "It must be your imagination," said Willard. "Ever troubled like thisbefore? I say, Mart, there isn't--isn't any--"

  "Any what?"

  "Well, any--er--insanity in your family, is there?"

  "Don't be a silly fool!" begged Martin.

  "I just thought that maybe--"

  "Listen here, Brand! There's no imagination about it. I've beenpoisoned."

  "Poisoned!" gasped Willard. Martin nodded gravely.

  "Yes, I've got it all doped out. I've been onion poisoned."

  "But onions aren't--aren't poisonous," expostulated Willard.

  "Maybe not to some folks, but they are to me," Martin spoke withconviction. "What happened is just this. That night we went to thelunch-cart the place was full of onion odor. Remember? Well, I breatheda lot of it into my system and it poisoned me. It's in my bloodprobably. If I'm not all right tomorrow I'm going to see a doctor."

  Willard considered the theory for a moment and then gravely acknowledgedthat there might be something in it.

  "You bet there is," Martin assured him. "Why, it stands to reason.Look what chloroform does. It gets into your blood when you inhale it,doesn't it? Well, it's the same way with onions. Some folks aren'taffected by it, but I'm different. I guess a doctor would be mightyinterested in my case." Martin paused to consider the idea and thenwent on proudly. "Yes, sir, I'll bet he would! I'll bet he'd writeabout me to the--the medical association!"

  "I dare say," assented Willard. "Maybe it would get in the New Yorkpapers, too. 'Poisoned by Onions! Strange Case of Young PreparatorySchool Student Puzzles the Medical Fraternity!' Maybe they'd print yourpicture, Mart."

  "You can make a silly joke of it if you like," said Martin, "but I'llbet I'm right!"

  Joe and Bob came up to the room that night and Martin explained histheory again for their benefit. He was undergoing another visitationof the onion malady, but interest in his case and in his solution ofit gave him strength to bear up better than usual. Joe and Bob--Bobespecially--were tremendously impressed with the theory and Bobrecalled having read of a similar case. "Only," he said, "in that casethe man had been poisoned by eating watercress."

  "Eating what?" asked Martin incredulously.

  "Watercress," repeated Bob. "It doesn't affect most people, but somefellows can't eat it at all. You've heard that, haven't you, Joe?"

  "Yes," Joe assented soberly. "I had a cousin like that. Watercress andstrawberries were like poison to him."

  Martin looked from Joe to Bob suspiciously, but they were so evidentlyin earnest that he asked: "What happened to this fellow?"

  "Why, he ate watercress and was poisoned. It got into his blood, youknow, and the only way they could save his life was by transfusion."

  "What's that? You mean pumping someone else's blood into him?"

  "Sure! That's the only thing possible in extreme cases."

  Martin hurriedly produced his bottle and popped a soda-mint into hismouth. "Well, I guess onions wouldn't do that to a fellow," he saidwith a confidence that didn't quite ring true. "Would you think so,Joe?"

  "Search me," replied Joe comfortingly. "I never heard of onionpoisoning before."

  "Nor I," said Bob troubledly. "I guess it's a pretty rare disease, andmaybe the doctors don't understand it yet. Guess it's sort of likesleeping sickness," he added blandly.

  Martin shot a hostile and wary look at him, but Bob only smiledsympathetically and reached out his hand. "Let's see one of thosetablets, Mart," he requested. "I've got a sort of a heavy feelingmyself tonight."

  "You don't notice the taste of onions, do you?" asked Martin hopefullyas he tossed the bottle across the table.

  "N--no, not exactly. More a sort of gone sensation. I guess it was thebaked potato I ate." He took some time to get a tablet out, under coverof the table; so long that Martin said impatiently: "Shake the bottle.They're probably stuck."

  "I've got it, thanks." Bob popped a tablet into his mouth, made a wryface, screwed the cover on the bottle again and tossed it back. "Nastytasting things, aren't they?" he asked.

  "You get used to them after awhile," replied Martin consolingly."I guess I've eaten twenty of them today. When you have bloodtrans--whatever it is, Bob, how do you do it? I mean, where do you getthe blood?"

  "Advertise, I think. It isn't easy, of course, because the otherfellow, the one who gives the new blood, has to be pretty healthy. Lotsof times you can't find anyone and it's no use."

  "What happens then?" inquired Martin uneasily.

  Bob shrugged. "The patient dies, of course. You hear of it very often."

  Martin gulped and almost swallowed his tablet. "Gee! I guess I'd findsomeone if I had to," he said. "Maybe, though, it's more imaginationthan anything with me. You know you can imagine all sorts of things,and I guess onions wouldn't be very hard, eh?"

  "N--no," said Joe, "but I have a hunch that your theory is about right,Mart. It certainly sounds mighty reasonable to me."

  "I don't see how you make that out," replied Martin shortly. "If it wasreally a case of--of being poisoned I guess I'd be a lot worse now thanI am. It's been going on two days, and anyone knows that poison actspretty quick."

  "Some poisons," answered Bob significantly. "But there are others thatact--er--very slowly. There's hemp, for instance."

  "That's a rope," said Martin derisively.

  "It's a very deadly poison," said Bob sternly, "and it'svery--very--what's the word, Joe?"

  "Lingering?" asked Joe.

  "Insidious," suggested Willard.

  "Insidious, that's it! Sometimes the patient suffers for weeks."

  "Well, I haven't eaten any hemp," said Martin crossly. "I haven't eatenanything, confound it! I'm mighty near starved! Maybe that's what thetrouble is. If it wasn't so late I'd go out and get a sandwich or apiece of pie or something."

  "What you need is hearty food," said Bob. "A nice steak and onions, forinstance."

  "Shut up! I hope you choke!" Martin fairly gibbered. "I wish youhad it! I wish you all had it, you gang of grinning apes! You makeme sick!" In proof of the latter assertion he shuddered violently,hurriedly produced his bottle of soda-mint tablets and, keeping hislips very tightly closed, agitatedly unscrewed the top. The otherswatched with almost painful intensity. Martin inverted the bottle,seized a tablet and popped it into his mouth. Instantly a strange,haunted look came over his face. He swallowed once, his eyes round andalarmed, and then the tablet came out of his mouth even quicker than ithad gone in and he laid hands on his stomach and closed his eyes.

  "What is it?" asked Bob anxiously. "Feeling sick, Mart?"

  "Sick! I--I'm dying! They--they're full of it!"

  "What are? Full of what?" asked Joe.

  "The tablets." Martin opened his eyes slowly, and gazed in horror atthe questioner. "They're full of--of onion! Oh, gee!"

  "Nonsense," said
Bob cheerfully. "How could they be? Let's see them."Martin weakly brought them forth from his pocket and held them out withaverted head. Bob removed the lid and held the bottle to his nose. "Idon't smell anything," he said. "Do you, Brand?"

  "Not a thing," replied Willard gravely. "You try, Joe."

  "Well, there's a faint--ah--medicinal odor apparent," said Joejudicially, "but as for onions--"

  "Let me smell," demanded Martin. He took the bottle and put it to hisnostrils. Then it went flying across the room and its contents rolledmerrily about the floor. "It is!" he yelled. "They are! Can't youfellows smell it?"

  "Look here, Martin," responded Joe sternly. "You'd better pull yourselftogether, old man. It won't do to let this--this hallucination go toofar. Better get into bed and try to forget about onions. Maybe a goodnight's rest is what you need. In the morning I'd have a talk with thedoctor. Of course your trouble may not be serious, Mart. I dare say ifyou take it in time you can be cured. But I'd feel a whole lot easierif you saw a doctor, old man."

  Martin's expression of glowering distaste changed slightly. He staredin growing fascination at Bob.

  "It might be," continued the latter kindly, "that you've been bitten bythe Diptera onionensis, otherwise known as the onion-fly. Of course, itisn't probable, but you never can tell, Mart. There's the tse-tse fly,now. You wouldn't expect to find that around here, but I've been toldthat it is quite common. Then why not the onion-fly?"

  Martin's gaze was fixed on Bob and Martin's mouth was slowly droppingopen. He was like one who is seeing a Great Light and who is still toodazed by its refulgence for speech. Bob smiled gently and continued,keeping, however, perhaps unintentionally, the table between him andMartin.

  "You've been so awfully sympathetic about my sleeping sickness,Mart, that I just can't bear to see you troubled like this. It wouldcertainly be a load off my mind if you'd just talk things over with thedoctor--"

  "You did it!" hissed Martin. "You--you played a trick on me!"

  "Why, Mart," protested Bob in hurt tones. "How can you sit there andsay them cruel words?"

  Martin glared wildly about him. Joe was so entirely overcome by someemotion that he had his head in his hands and Willard was gasping,perhaps with pain, his countenance hidden behind a propped-up book.Martin swallowed hard once, drew his feet beneath him and then was outof his chair with a roar.

  "I'll onion you!" he shouted. "I'll--I'll--"

  Around the table they plunged, hurdling Joe's legs, since that youthwas too helpless to draw them back, twirling Willard around in hischair like a chip in a maelstrom as they passed, Bob a half circuit tothe good at the end of each lap. Noise and confusion reigned supreme,but through it came Bob's voice, made faint by laughter:

  "For the love of Mike, Mart, use discretion!"

  Martin's invariable reply was a savage howl of wrath.

  On the tenth circuit--or perhaps it was the eleventh!--disasterovertook the pursued. Bob slipped coming into the backstretch andwent down, and Martin hurled himself on him. Over and over they went,grunting, gasping, gurgling. Willard rescued the lamp just before thetable went over on top of the battlers, showering them with books andpapers. Had Bob been in his best form that contest would have beenbrief, for he was bigger and stronger than his antagonist, but laughterdrugged him and before he could cry for mercy Martin had thumped hishead many times on the rug and jounced merrily up and down on his ribs.When, at last, Martin drew off and Bob climbed weakly to his feet theroom was a wreck and over the scene hung, like a horrible miasma, thesickening concentrated odor of onions!

  Martin sniffed and would have flung himself on Bob again if the latterhad not pointed beseechingly to the floor. Martin looked and picked upthe stoppered remains of a broken bottle. To it clung a paper label."Onion Extract," he read.

  When peace, if not complete order, had been restored Bob confessed."I gave you fair warning, Mart," he said. "I told you I'd get even.Trouble with you is you think you invented joking and that no one elsecan get away with it. I got the idea that night when you turned upyour nose at the onions in the lunch-cart. I paid the cook a quarterfor that bottle of onion extract and the rest was easy. All I had todo was get to table long enough ahead of you to drop a little of thestuff around: on your napkin, in your porridge, in your salt-cellar andso on. I was clever enough not to be too generous with it, you know.Once, when you were looking the other way, I got some on your meat, andanother time in your coffee. Yesterday I sprinkled a good big lot onyour football togs. Maybe you noticed it?"

  Martin said: "Hm!" grimly.

  "I tried to get Brand to put some on your toothbrush and your pillow,but he was too tender-hearted," added Bob. Martin turned a sorrowfullyaccusing look on Willard. "And that's that," Bob ended, smilingly.

  "Huh," said Martin this time, scornfully. "I knew all along it was justsome silly joke!"

  "Oh, no, you didn't, pettie! Anyhow, we'll call it quits now if youlike. I'm satisfied if you are. Only, Mart, no more 'tse-tse flies' and'sleeping sickness' stuff. My health is very good, thank you, and ifyou want a place on the team, son, you get out and earn it!"

  "Oh, that's all right, Bob," answered Martin, grinning. "Johnny toldme today I was to play left tackle after this. So I don't care whetheryou have sleeping sickness or not!" Then, after a perceptible pause, headded: "Much!"