"Never thought of that," said Bink Stubbs. "Bet you're right, fellows. We'll have to get down on our hulks to him to make it all right. I'm ready to say I'm ashamed of myself, and ask him to forget it."
The others expressed themselves as equally willing, and so it came about that Frank was much surprised to have them come to him, one after another, and confess they had used him shabbily. He was ready enough to shake hands with them all, while he assured them he did not hold the least hardness.
They saw he was in earnest, they were satisfied he was willing and ready to forget they had ever treated him with contempt, and yet he did not cheer up, which was something they could not understand.
"Better let him alone," advised Creighton, after a little. "It may be something we don't know anything about, that he is chewing. Anyway, he's not himself."
Bruce Browning, big and lazy ever, was one of the group. He had been keeping still, but now he observed:
"That's right, let him alone. I've traveled with him, and I never saw him this way before. I tell you he is dangerous, and somebody may get hurt."
"Keep away from the window, my love and my dove—
Keep away from the window, don't you hear!
Come round some other night,
For there's gwine to be a fight,
And there'll be razzers a-flyn' through the air."
Thus sang Bink Stubbs.
"Look at Harris!" laughed Thornton, nudging the fellow nearest him. "Don't he look sour? They say he got hit to-day."
"Got hit?"