“Below the average, which makes it all the harder for him. Wadsworth and I, out of pity, invited him to go with us on this outing. Florida is a mighty poor place in the summer season.”
“Or any other season,” amended Wadsworth.
“We were glad to do so, but it galls us to fail to see the first spark of gratitude or appreciation on his part. Not once has he said so much as ‘Thank you’ for all the favors done him.”
“It is hardly fair to refer to his prodigious appetite and I shall not do so further than to say that it has doubled our expenses.”
“I hope you don’t begrudge him his food,” said Hunter reprovingly to his friend, whose slur struck him as in poor taste.
“Of course not; it’s our food that I dislike to see appropriated by him.”
“I suppose the treat is so rare a one for him,” suggested Harvey, “that he cannot help making the most of it.”
“There may be something in that,” replied Wadsworth, “but the fellow is absent and it doesn’t seem fair to abuse him when he can’t reply, though what we have just said has been said to his face.”
“How does he take it?”
“Grins and eats more than ever. Which reminds me that the Adirondacks seem to have become a favorite tramping ground for airships. Two of them are hovering over and about us.”