One afternoon the three boys were in their cave. Tony was turning pan-cakes in a skillet, while Jimmie was laboring with a dark mixture that they euphemistically called coffee. Kit sat on the branch of a tree, with his head over the ledge, on the look-out for any wandering prefects.
“Hurry up, you frabjous duffers,” he called down, midst a stream of amiable chaffing; “it’s close upon four, and we’ll have to bolt the grub in order to get back to Gumshoe’s five o’clock.”
“Why don’t you get down and work a bit, then? Nobody’s coming along this late. Get the plates out, and pour some syrup out of the jug. No work: no eat.”
“Too many cooks spoil the broth,” he laughed.... “Shish!” he exclaimed suddenly, and ducked his head below the ledge.
The three kept a tense silence for a moment. They heard footsteps crunching in the snow above and passing on. Kit cautiously peeped over the ledge. “By Jove,” he whispered, “it’s Reggie Carroll and Arty Chapin. I thought it was a couple of prefects.”
He slid down from the tree, and began to gobble up one of Tony’s pan-cakes. “By the by, Tony, I thought the elegant Reginald Carter Westover Carroll had severed his friendship with that specimen of common Chapin clay.”
“So he had,” answered Tony, musingly. “I didn’t know they had taken up with each other again.”
“What a queer duck Reggie is,” said Jimmie, as he poured out three cups of coffee. “Have you ever made him out, Tony?”
“Not I. We hit it off well enough after the first few days—for a time. But this term I have hardly seen anything of him. I am sorry he is in with Chapin again.”