"Hey, just listen to Landy puff, will you, boys!" laughed Chatz Maxfield, whose accent betrayed his Southern birth.
"He keeps getting fatter every day, I do believe," joked Mark Cummings, a clean-cut young chap with a clear eye and resolute bearing.
"Now, that ain't exactly fair, Mark," complained the object of this mirth, in a reproachful tone, "and you know it. Don't I take exercise every day just to reduce my flesh? Why, I'm making a regular martyr of myself, my mom says, ever since I joined the Boy Scouts, so that I can keep my own with the rest of you. She says if I keep it up I'll soon be skin and bones, that's what!"
A shout arose from the entire bunch at this. The idea of that fat boy ever reaching a point where such a term could be applied to him was simply ridiculous.
"What time is it, Chatz; since you seem to be the only one in the lot who had the good sense and also the decency to fetch a watch along?"
The Southern boy readily pulled out a little nickel timepiece, and consulted it, but the dusk was coming fast, so that he had to bend low in order to make sure of the right figures.
"Half past seven, fellows," he announced.
"Wow, won't my folks just be worried about me, though!" exclaimed a very tall boy, whose build would indicate that he was something of a sprinter; and whose name being Arthur Stansbury, his mates, after the usual perversity of boys in general, had promptly nicknamed him "Lil Artha."
"I don't think they'll be alarmed, because they know a bad penny is sure to turn up," laughed Mark, immediately dodging a friendly blow from the lengthy arm of his comrade.
"Hold on, I've lost my cap," declared the one who had dodged, but the others made no move toward stopping; supper was a mile away, and they felt hungry enough to eat a houseful.