The dapper fellow looked vaguely about the kitchen, but, there being nothing of the sort in sight, his eyes returned blankly to Dick’s face.
“I don’t thee any,” he said plaintively.
“Take a candle, then, and look through the other rooms,” Merriwell retorted rather sharply.
He was beginning to tire a little of the fellow’s absolute thick-headedness.
Joblots still hesitated. It seemed almost as if he did not wish to leave the kitchen, but presently he lighted a candle and departed reluctantly.
“Where in the mischief did you get hold of that?” McCormick asked quickly.
Dick smiled at the other’s tone of contempt.
“Picked him up in the woods about a mile down the path,” he explained. “He fired a charge of bird shot at us, and when we got hold of him we found he’d come out for the day’s shooting, missed the last train back, and hadn’t a notion of where he was going to put up to-night. There’s plenty of room here, so we thought he might as well stay and go back in the morning. He doesn’t know one end of a gun from the other, and I shall feel safer when he’s out of the woods.”
“Humph!” grunted McCormick. “I never ran up against such a chump in all my life. He’s a blockhead.”
Dick did not answer at once. He was thinking of the expression he had surprised on the face of the would-be sportsman a little while ago. It was not in the least like the look of a man lacking in sense. He wondered whether Mr. Percy Joblots was quite such a fool as appeared at first sight.