"Just right!" declared the lad. "Dave and I are starved! Just throw us together a little fried ham and some scalloped potatoes, a piece of Yorkshire pudding with some roast beef for Dave, here, and a few loaves of bread with a side of creamed cauliflower and some peas and carrots. Two or three helpings of succotash and some green onions wouldn't go bad either. With a couple of cups of coffee and some chocolate eclairs and a cream puff with a little ice cream and some lemon pie we could manage to worry along until tea time."
"Good night!" said Ned. "Wouldn't you rather take pot luck?"
"Oh," responded Jimmie, lightly, "any little old thing you wish."
"Then we'll give you some stew," announced Ned.
"Here's hoping, Ned," Jimmie said, laying a hand on Ned's arm, "that it isn't cabbage stew with bunches of vegetarian sausages cooked in it."
"Why?" inquired Ned. "Don't you like that sort of food?"
"Oh," exclaimed Jimmie, with a gesture of disgust, "we've had nothing else for about four years! I feel just like poor old Ben Gunn in 'Treasure Island.' I'd like a little civilized food—a piece of cheese or something like that. Don't say stew to me or I'll quit you cold."
"If you want a piece of cheese, take me," declared Jack. "I feel mightily ashamed of the way we let you two sneak up on us and catch us."
"Oh, that's all right," offered Jimmie with great magnanimity, "you really captured yourself, you know. Dave and I let you walk right up onto us before Dave swung that rope. I must get that trick."
"How did you learn that knack, Dave?" asked Ned, admiringly.