CHAPTER XI
WHERE THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED
“And where is Professor Skillings?” asked Mrs. Havel, as the well-laden launch drew away from the little natural landing which defended one end of the girls’ bathing beach at Green Knoll Camp.
“Bless your heart, ma’am,” said Ferdinand Roberts, laughing, “the old gentleman is trying to figure out one of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments–that is, I believe, what you’d call it.”
“One of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments?” cried Wyn. “For pity’s sake! what can that be?”
“Why, at breakfast this morning the professor got to ‘dreaming,’ as he sometimes does. He tells us lots of interesting things when he begins talking that way; but sometimes, if we are in a hurry to get away, we have to put the stopper in,” chuckled Ferd.
“Tubby usually does it. Tubby really is good for something beside eating and sleeping, girls–you wouldn’t believe it!”
“You do surprise us,” admitted Bess Lavine, cuttingly.
“All right. But just wait and listen. We wanted to get away early and come over here after you,” said Ferd. “And the professor began to give us one of his talks. This time it was on literature. By and by he says:
“‘We are told that it took, Gray, author of ‘An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ seven years to write that famous poem.”
“‘Gee!’ exclaimed Tubby. ‘If he’d only known stenography how much better off he’d been.’