“Look here, Bart,” said Merry, gently, “I’m your friend—I’m the one for you to talk to about this matter, old man.”
Bart looked up, now, but there was something like defiance in his face.
“There isn’t anything to talk about,” he asserted. “Can’t a fellow have the blues once in a while, if he wants ’em!”
“Nobody wants the blues, Hodge. A man in good health, with a liver that is not torpid, should not have the blues. Is there anything the matter with your liver?”
“Dunno.”
“There was a cause for the sudden change in you,” said Merry, seriously. “A little while ago you seemed in better spirits than you have shown before for a month. And now you are in the funks.”
“Oh, don’t use that word!”
“What word?”
“Funk.”
“What’s the matter with that word?”