“Rather unpleasant walking,” remarked Mr. Snow, looking at Sam’s muddy feet.
“I don’t mind the walking,” Sam hastened to say. “When you’re out with a gun, you go through so much mud that a little more or less doesn’t count.”
“I suppose so,” responded Mr. Snow. Professor Towle was thinking in a half-interested way that it was a queer freak for a boy to go ahead of a car on a day like this, and wondering vaguely what prompted the impulse. He did not wonder long. When one has been guessing more or less unsuccessfully at schoolboy conundrums for a quarter of a century, one gives up easily before a casual new one.
When Sam came back to 7 Hale that night, with game bag empty as usual, he found Duncan stretched out in an easy chair before the fire, arrayed in bath robe and slippers. His shoes, brown with mud and bleached at the tips with water, sulked, neglected, in a corner.
“Been to dinner?” inquired Sam, as he opened the door.
“Not going,” Duncan answered laconically. “When I got back about five, I was so dead hungry I couldn’t wait for dinner, so I filled up at McLane’s. You see I didn’t stop for much luncheon this noon. I had a whopping big steak with two orders of French fried, and half a lemon pie. I sha’n’t want anything more to eat this week.”
“What do you think about it now; was it worth while or not?” Sam talked from his bedroom, where he was busy peeling off his soaked clothes.
“No, it wasn’t,” responded Duncan, slowly. “I didn’t see much of the surf, and I came near getting into trouble.” He waited a minute and added as an afterthought, “From one point of view it was.”
“What’s that—exercise?”
“No. I found out what a good fellow I’ve got for a room-mate!”