“Then let it depart!” laughed Frank. “You have been forced to confess yourself mistaken on other occasions; you may on this.”
“Good-night,” said Hodge, and he went out.
Ephraim grinned.
“Some fellows would say it’d be a gol-danged sensible thing fer yeou to git rid of that feller,” he said, nodding toward the door. “He’s gittin’ to be the greatest croaker I ever knew.”
“Hodge is getting worse,” admitted Frank, gravely. “I think the unfortunate end of his college course has had much to do with it. He broods over that a great deal, and it is making him sour and unpleasant. I can imagine about how he feels.”
“If he ever larfed he’d be more agreeable. Danged if I like a feller that alwus looks so sollum an’ ugly. Sometimes he looks as ef he could snap a spike off at one bite an’ not harf try.”
“Wait,” said Frank. “If I am successful with this play, I hope to go back to Yale in the fall and take Hodge with me. I think he is getting an idea into his head that his life career has been ruined at the very start, and that is making him bitter. I’ll take him back, run him into athletics, get his mind off such unpleasant thoughts, and make a new man of him.”
“Waal, I hope ye do,” said Gallup, rising and preparing to go. “There’s jest one thing abaout Hodge that makes me keer a rap fer him.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s ther way he sticks to yeou. Be gosh! I be’lieve he’d wade through a red-hot furnace to reach yeou an’ fight for yeou, if yeou was in danger!”