“What’s that?”
“Oh, it’s what my father calls the power of concentrating your mind.”
“Well, Bob had it for a fact. It didn’t seem to make much difference to him whether there was a room full of fellows about him, or not. When he got ready to work, he just sat down to it, and you might yell in his ears or pull his chair out from under him, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. He’d sit there on thin air and dig away until his work was all done and then look up as if he was as surprised as you please to see any one in the room. Do you know, I just envied Bob. I did for a fact. I’d give all my father’s money to stand in his shoes.”
“Perhaps your father would have something to say about that. But Bob was a great fellow; no mistake about that. Do you think he’ll have to give up going to college with us?”
“I don’t know; I hope not. His mother’s a widow, you know, and since his father died, I think they’ve had a hard time of it. If it was any other fellow I’d say right off he couldn’t go. But Bob’s different, you see. He didn’t have any money and couldn’t do lots of the things the others did, but he was the most popular fellow in all the school, for all that. So I somehow don’t give up hope that he’ll go with us in the fall, after all. Everything seems to turn his way.”
“Don’t you believe it. It’s the other way around, I’m telling you. He just turns everything his way.”
“Well, I don’t care how you put it if he’ll only join us in the camp. I say, Jock, how did you happen to hit on this plan? It’s great, that’s what it is.”
“Oh, I didn’t hit on it at all, it was my father. You see, he spent the first vacation he’s had in ten years last summer down at the Thousand Islands. We all had such a good time that we wanted to go again this summer; but he couldn’t get away, and my mother wouldn’t go without him, so they finally compromised on me. At first they thought they’d send me down to Alexandria Bay and Round Island to one of the hotels, and for fear that I’d get lonesome they were going to select some fine man who was well up in Latin and Greek to go along with me, just for company, you see.”
“Yes, I see,” laughed his companion. “They were going to get a tutor for you, were they?”
“Yes, that’s what some people call it, I believe. But when I astonished the family by passing my entrance exams., they didn’t know what to do, so at my own suggestion my father hired a camp on Pine Tree Island, and the result is that you and the other fellows are to benefit by my brilliant labors. You ought to be grateful; but this is a cold, cold world, and I’m not building my hopes too high. The trouble is, I know you.”