"What about cigarettes?" drawled Browning, making a fog round his head. "Don't let the kettle call the pot Blackie! The most disgusting thing ever created is a smoker of cigarettes!"
"Yah!" growled Danny, taking out a cigarette. "Lend me a match, old man."
And Browning lent him a match. Bink was rubbing earnestly at the stung spot.
"I'll never see honey again without thinking of this."
"Which honey do you mean?" asked Danny. "I heard you calling a chambermaid Honey the other evening. You must have thought her sweet!"
"And I heard one of them calling you a fool the other evening. She must have thought you an idiot."
"Thomebody get me a cab!" begged Veazie, rubbing his stings and ruefully regarding himself. "Thay, fellowth, thith ith awful! I'm a thight! Get a cab, thomebody, and take me home. I'm thick!"
"No cab here," said Skelding, who was also anxious to get away from the joking and guying crowd. "But I see a carriage over there. Yes, two of them."
"Get a cawiage—anything!" moaned Veazie. "Take me to the hothpital, take me to a laundwy, take me to a bath—anywhere, quick!"
The exodus of Veazie and his friends was followed by the return of Merriwell and his comrades to the traps. Hodge had not been long out of a sick-bed, and looked thin and weak. He walked with Merriwell. The other members of the flock had forgiven him for the rancorous and sulky spirit which had made him refuse to catch in the ball-game against Hartford, in which Buck Badger had pitched, but they had not forgotten it. They were courteous, but they were not cordial, and Hodge felt it.