“Thanks,” laughed Phil. “Then I guess I can help some other brother out. But, say, do you fellows want to go? Sis said I could ask you all. It’s the usual affair, you know. The young ladies of Fairview, under the eagle eye of Miss Philock and her aides, will go for a May walk, to gather flowers and look on nature as she is supposed to be. There will be a little basket lunch, and the usual screams when the girls think they see a snake. Want to go?”
“Sure!” cried Tom, and the others chorused an eager assent.
“It will be a good time then, to ask the girls to come to the athletic meet,” said Sid. “They will come; won’t they?”
“Oh, I guess so,” replied Phil. “They won’t root for Randall, though, when there’s going to be a team from their own school.”
“Oh, we couldn’t expect it,” said Tom. “But we’ll have a good time on the May walk.” And forthwith he proceeded to look over his stock of neckties.
Not many at Randall were favored as were our four heroes in the matter of invitations to the May walk, and when it became known that Tom and his chums had one of the coveted screeds, their good offices were bespoken on all sides, that they might use their influence for others.
“Nothing doing,” replied Tom to Holly Cross, Kindlings, and a few other kindred spirits. “Sorry, but we can’t do it.”
“And the nerve of Shambler,” said Sid one afternoon, as he joined his chums. “He wanted to know if we couldn’t introduce him to some new girl at Fairview. The one he did know, shook him.”
“He’s getting worse all the while,” declared Tom. “There is something about that fellow that I can’t cotton to.”
“But he’s a good runner and jumper,” declared Phil.