“Oh, all right. Sorry to have bothered you.” Dawson, red and indignant, rose and with a flashing glance at Lester, who had again relapsed over his blotter, left the room.
“Now what did you want to talk to the fellow like that for?” said Richard resentfully. “A perfectly good fellow who comes and pays you the compliment of asking you for your theme, and you throw him down in the most uncivil way! Besides trying to snap my head off! You’d better get back to your old life if hard study makes you behave like this.”
“All through?” asked Lester grimly, looking up at his roommate.
“Yes.” Richard seized a book and dashed it open wrathfully.
For some minutes there was quiet in the room. Then Richard, who, in spite of a certain rigidity that characterized him when any matters of principle were involved, was of too accommodating and friendly a disposition to remain at odds with any one for insufficient reasons, began to make overtures.
“Lester,” he said, “why didn’t you tell a fellow you’d had your theme read in class? You’re so secretive. When I have a little success I run home and blab it all to you; but when you do anything I can’t dig it out of you with a pickaxe.”
“It wasn’t anything,” said Lester, with his eyes on his book.
“Yes, it was, too, or Dawson would never have been so enthusiastic. What was your theme about?”
“Oh, never mind! Can’t you see I want to study?”
“Well, it’s easy enough to answer a simple question, isn’t it? I should think when a fellow shows some interest in what you’ve done you might do something else than bark at him.”