They halted at the doctor's door, and Barry rapped. The voice of the big principal told them to "Enter!" and the bigger boy pushed open the door.
"Here he is, sir," said Barry, winking fast over the head of the smaller boy at Dr. Raymond. "I have just been telling him what a jolly good time his folks are likely having right now. It must be so interesting to be shipwrecked."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BLOODY CORNER
The news went over the school at noon, of course, and most of the smaller boys eyed Bobby Blake askance. The boy himself seemed walking in a kind of cloud; his mind was stunned, and it was lucky that Dr. Raymond had said to him, kindly:
"You are excused from recitations to-day, Robert."
The good doctor had spoken to him quite cheerfully of the probable loss of the steamship on which Mr. and Mrs. Blake had sailed from New York. The principal seemed to have taken his cue from Barrymore Gray.
To tell the truth, what Barry had said cheered Bobby more than anything else. Even Fred Martin was a trifle depressing. Fred wanted to give him his share in the bats and mask and other baseball paraphernalia, and turn over to him, in fact, most of his personal property, likely to be dear to a boy's heart.
This was the red-haired boy's way of showing sympathy. But it did not help much.
The roseate picture Barry had drawn of the shipwreck stuck in Bobby's mind. He was very glad his mother could not take cold down there, even if she got her feet wet.