“Sit down,” answered Dick brusquely. “Something is the matter, Sam, but I’d rather be skinned than tell you what it is. All the same I’m not going to go around snubbing you and leaving you in the dark after all the good times we’ve had together.”
“I should think not, indeed,” cried Sam. “Skin away, old man. Let’s have the operation over with.”
Dick, it was evident, dared not give himself time to think. He blurted out what he had to say.
“My dad wrote me that you were thinking of coming down here to school.”
“Well?”
“Well, and he said the neighbors all were wondering where in the dickens your father got the money to send you.”
“I don’t know,” answered Sam angrily, “that it is any of their blamed business.”
“It mightn’t be under some circumstances,” Dick went on. “But—”
“Yes?”
“This is where the skinning process comes in.”