The story
“Harold Moore was distinctly overbearing. Ever since he had won the free-for-all race on the ice he had assumed that because he could skate better than anybody else in the village, he was a fellow to be looked up to by young and old—and especially by the girls. He did cut a rather good figure on the ice—and he succeeded in establishing a reputation for himself as a skating master, and in winning away from Roger Woodward the affections of Miss Helen Knight, the village beauty. There was a lively little boy in town who didn’t like the turn affairs had taken. Everybody knew Tom, and that he was always up to mischief. He went to Roger Woodward and told him to challenge his rival to a race on the ice, giving Woodward his solemn promise that, far from coming out the victor, Moore should make himself ridiculous. And it all happened exactly as Tom had predicted. In the middle of the pond, the skating master flopped over in most unsportsmanlike fashion, while Roger calmly sped past to the goal. From that moment, Helen dropped Harold Moore, and Roger was again the favored one. Tom was too gleeful at the outcome to keep his secret. He confided to Roger that there were two reasons why the skating master had come to such an ignominious end. One was that he was wicked—and wicked people are always punished. ‘And what was the other reason?’ asked Roger. ‘W-e-l-l—I sneaked into his house and dulled his skates.’”
Summary from Reel Life · 14 February 1914
