“I’m bound to be a bad man, am I?”
“You are. You are a tease, and you’re careless, and you don’t care what happens when you are out for fun, and you are reckless with your money, and—and——”
“So far,” interposed Ruth who had heard this, and she said it rather soberly, “you have related your own shortcomings to a nicety, Agnes. There is little use in the pot calling the kettle black.”
“Well! I declare! Isn’t it the result of my association with this boy that my own character is so bad?” Agnes demanded.
“You are both incorrigible,” declared Ruth, and thereafter paid no attention to them.
Agnes was feeling so much better by this time that she was ready for any gayety and almost any stroke of mischief. She was about with Neale O’Neil all the time; and usually the little ones were in their company. So that Mr. Howbridge had not to fret himself in the least regarding Tess and Dot.
Ruth and Luke were together most of the time, for aboard ship Professor Keeps did not need his young assistant. Ruth thought the bald-headed professor with the very pronounced near-sighted squint, rather an interesting man. He was still in the thirties; but he was so dry of speech and look that it was difficult not to think of him as much older.
He was interesting to talk with—or, rather, to listen to. Luke said what Professor Keeps did not know about botany, the flowers of the field themselves had forgotten!
“You speak almost as uproariously as Neale does,” said Ruth, smiling. “I never knew you to be so hilarious before, Luke—not since I have known you.”
“Why shouldn’t I be light-hearted?” he returned, smiling. “This is my first regular job. Of course, I worked at that hotel for part of last summer, and so showed Neighbor that I really mean to be self-supporting just as soon as I can be. But being a hotel clerk did not rise out of my college work.