"Here is the bargain. I will advance the money as I said, provided that as soon as you get back from Hal's you will make arrangements to tutor with Mr. Caldwell this summer, in all the subjects you failed in and promise to put in two months of good, solid cramming, no half way about it."
"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's vacation."
"You don't need a vacation. If all I hear of you is true, or even half of it, you made your whole college year one grand, sweet vacation. What is the answer? Want time to think the proposition over?"
"No—o. I guess I'll take you up. I suppose I'll have to tutor anyway if I don't want to drop back a class, and I sure don't," Ted admitted honestly. "Unless you'll let me quit and you won't. It is awfully tough, though. You never made Tony or Larry kill themselves studying in vacations. I don't see—"
"Neither Tony or Larry ever flunked a college course. It remained for you to be the first Holiday to wear a dunce cap."
Ted flushed angrily at that. The shot went home, as the doctor intended it should. He knew when to hit and how to do it hard, as Larry had testified.
"Fool's cap if you like, Uncle Phil. I am not a dunce."
"I rather think that is true. Anyway, prove it to us this summer and there is no one who will be gladder than I to take back the aspersion. Is it understood then? You have your house-party and when you come back you are pledged to honest work, no shirking, no requests for time off, no complaints. Have I your word?"
Ted considered. He thought he was paying a stiff price for his house-party and his lark with Madeline. He could give up the first, though a fellow always had a topping time at Hal's; but he couldn't quite see himself owning ignominiously to Madeline that he couldn't keep his promise to her because of empty pockets. Moreover, as he had admitted, he would have to tutor anyway, probably, and he might as well get some gain out of the pain.
"I promise, Uncle Phil."