“I’ve got to do something—or bust,” declared the fun-loving lad in desperation.
“If you’re going to blow up, please go outside,” invited the big Californian solemnly. “It messes up a room horribly to have a fellow like you scattered all over it. Get outside!”
“You brute,” murmured Dutch. “After all I’ve done to add to the gaiety of Randall.”
“Work off another ink catapult on a new teacher,” advised Tom. “That’s always good for a laugh.”
“Oh, forget it,” urged Dutch, for that was a sore point with him yet, though it had happened some weeks before.
It was now several days since the rescue of the girls, and they had suffered no permanent ill effects from their break through the ice. Phil and his chums had seized on the excuse of asking about them, to pay several visits to Fairview, until Miss Philock, the aged preceptress “smelled a mouse,” as Sid said, and curtailed the visits of all but Phil, who, by virtue of being a brother, was allowed to see Ruth for a few minutes.
“But what’s the fun of going to see your own sister?” asked Phil.
“What indeed?” echoed the others, though some of them wished they were Phil.
And, as the days wore on the cold did not diminish, and the ice on the river held.
“A slim outlook for Spring games,” growled Dutch, as he sat in the chums’ room, vainly begging a suggestion for fun.