There was silence in the room—a silence broken only by the ticking of the fussy alarm clock, which seemed to be doing its best to distract attention from the unwelcome letter. It was as if it were chanting over and over again:
“Come-on! Come-on! All-right! All-right!”
Finally the constant ticking got on the nerves of Sid, and he stopped it by the simple, but effective means of jamming a toothpick in the back of the clock, where there is a slot for regulating the hair spring.
Tom read his letter over again.
“Is there—that is, can we—Oh, hang it, you know what I mean, Tom!” blurted out Phil. “Is there anything we can do to help you? If there is——”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Tom softly. “It’s some trouble dad is in, and—well, of course it may affect me.”
“Affect you—how?” asked Frank.
“It’s this way,” went on the Randall pitcher. “Dad, you know, is a farmer. That’s how he made what little money he has, and, in the last few years he laid by quite a bit. About a year ago, he was persuaded to invest it in a Western horse deal. He sunk about all he had, and—well, those Westerners double-crossed him. They got his money, and froze him out.”
“That’s like some fellows in the West, but not all,” broke in Frank Simpson, bound to stick up for his own region. “How did it happen, Tom?”