“All right then, me lad, this is the time for the big secret,” said Linda. “I just happened to be in the assembly room on some business of my own last Thursday afternoon when my sessions were over, and I overheard your professor in trigonometry tell a man I did not know, who seemed to be a friend visiting him, that the son of Judge Whiting was doing the finest work that ever had been done in any of the Los Angeles high schools, and that undoubtedly you were going to graduate with higher honours than any other boy ever had from that school.”
Donald sat thinking this over. He absently lifted an elbow and wiped the tiny scales from his face with his shirt sleeve.
“Young woman,” he said solemnly, “them things what you’re saying, are they ‘cross your heart, honest to goodness, so help you,’ truth, or are they the fruit of a perfervid imagination?”
Linda shook her head vigorously.
“De trut’, kid,” she said, “de gospel trut’. You have the Jap going properly. He can’t stop you now. You have fought your good fight, and you have practically won it. All you have to do is to carry on till the middle of June, and you’re It.”
“I wish Dad knew,” said Donald in a low voice.
“The Judge does know,” said Linda heartily. “It wasn’t fifteen minutes after I heard that till I had him on the telephone repeating it as fast as I could repeat. Come to think of it, haven’t you noticed a particularly cocky set of his head and the corksome lightness about his heels during the past few days?”
“By Jove, he has been happy about something!” said Donald. “And I noticed that Louise and the Mater were sort of cheery and making a specialty of the only son and brother.”
“Sure, brother, sure,” said Linda. “Hurry up and scrape those fish and let’s scamper down the canyon merely for the joy of flying with wings on our feet. You’re It, young man, just It!”
Donald was sitting on a boulder. On another in front of him he was operating on the trout. His hands were soiled; his hair was tousled; he was fairly well decorated with fine scales. He looked at Linda appealingly.