“Wait! We have inspection here every day, to see which tent wins the pennant. Everything has got to be in its place, and there’s a place for everything. Beds made in a certain way, clothes folded in a certain way, shoes in a line under the bunk, everything polished up and swept out. Do you figure on cleanin’ up all that stuff every day, or are you goin’ to hire Joey as a valet?”
“My dear chap, I merely——”
“My advice to you,” Brick went on, “is to pick out from that mess just what you need every day, and store the rest in the lodge. Then we might have some room to move around. Do you get that?”
A crimson flush mounted from beneath Dirk’s immaculate white collar and spread over his pale features, but he said nothing. He dropped the things on the floor in a heap, and sat down on a locker-box, watching Joey sort out a collection of stockings and handkerchiefs. Brick pointedly returned to his life-saving manual.
For the first time since he had arrived at Lenape a few hours before, Dirk Van Horn paused to think. He could not see that he had done anything to merit such a harsh tone as that used by the red-headed Irish boy. Of course there was that awkward mistake when Ryan had been washing his things back of the kitchen; but that might have happened to anyone. Dirk had never before met a boy of the independent stripe of Brick Ryan. There had been no boys like him at “select” Wild Rose Camp, nor in what his mother called their “social set” back in the city. But Dirk wanted everybody to like him. He wanted Brick to like him and admire him. He went about it in the only way he knew—but it was the wrong way.
Brick was aware of a tap on his shoulder. He turned; before him stood the despised Van Horn in his citified garments. There was a smile on his face. His right hand was outstretched frankly; his left hand held a tennis racquet of the most expensive make.
“Look here, Ryan, old chap,” Dirk began. “We have to live together. Let’s be friends! What say? I know I was a chump a while ago, but I apologize, and I hope we’ll get along splendidly. Now, just to show you I think a lot of you, I hope you’ll accept this little present. It’s just a trifle, and I have two of them—but perhaps it will prove how much I want to be your friend.”
Before the amazed Brick knew what was happening, the other had pressed the handle of the racquet into his hand, and clapped him on the shoulder.
“That’s the spirit! Now we’re fast friends, you know!”
Brick stared at the gift. Fashioned of finest wood and gut, it represented at the least an amount that Brick would have had to work on his paper-route, back in the city, for a month to earn. Unbelievingly he looked from the gift to the giver. A sudden tide of red anger flooded his freckled face to the roots of his red hair. He jumped up, flung off the outstretched hand, and faced Van Horn. There was an ugly look on his face, and ugly words rose to his Irish tongue.