“I can’t read a book while I’m in Pensacola,” answered Bob.
“That ain’t the point,” continued Hal, leaning over the table. “Would you like to do it?”
Bob could not resist laughing outright.
“I don’t know what I’d do or want to do if I had to mosey around town here for three months all alone. But if you fellows have anything on that you’ll let me in on, I’ll cut the books.”
“We’ve got a club,” spoke up Tom, who seemed satisfied with the statement, “but it ain’t a ‘gang’. We ah very pahticulah, because we got to be. Ouah by-laws permit but fouah membahs, not includin’ Jerry Blossom. About the end of the season last yeah, we were fo’ced to expel a membah foh absentin’ himself from a reg’lar weekly outin’ to attend a picnic with a girl. Are you co’espondin’ with any girls?”
“I am not,” answered Bob promptly.
His interlocutors gazed at each other a few moments in silence.
“I reckon Mac ought to be hyah by rights,” suggested Tom, as if in deep thought.
“He ought to be expelled hisself,” blurted out Hal.
“But he owns the boat,” argued Tom, seriously. “And, besides, it was a free ticket.”