Sleuth’s lips curled scornfully. “Envy! Jealousy!” he declared. “The opportunity has not since presented itself until the present occasion for the full exercise of my acumen.”
“Wow!” whooped Springer. “Ac-cac-caccumen! That’s going some. Gee! Pipe, when you’re at home you must sit up nights to study the dictionary.”
“In command of English pure and undefiled,” retorted Sleuth, “you are plainly extremely limited.” Then he strolled off by himself and spent at least a full hour in deep thought.
Some time before sunset Jim Simpson reappeared in the punt and landed at the Point.
“Told ye I’d get round if I could,” he said, stepping ashore. “Didn’t know but the old man would raise objections and have something else for me to do, but when I told him what had happened to me, he give me a good dressin’ down for being keerless, and then said that you chaps could have any blessed thing you wanted that he owned. Say, the old gent ain’t sech a bad feller, though he nigh works me to death sometimes. Soon’s I come of age, you bet I’m goin’ to hit out for myself. Livin’ on a farm ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, I tell ye that. I’ve got the truck for ye here in the bo’t.”
He had brought a peck of new potatoes and a bountiful supply of green peas, as well as onions, beans for baking and a pot to bake them in. But that was not all; he proudly passed over something wrapped in brown paper, announcing:
“Here’s some lambsteak for ye. The old gent killed a lamb yesterday, and, thinkin’ mebbe you might like some meat, he cut this for ye and sent it as a present.”
“Lambsteak, green peas and new pertaters,” spluttered Crane. “Gee whiz! We’ll sartain have a feast. Say, Simp, yeou’re right abaout yeour old man; he ain’t a bad feller. Get busy, Stoney, and start the repast to cookin’.”
Ben was willing enough to do this, for his appetite, like that of the others, had been keenly aroused by camp life.
He set his companions shelling the peas and preparing the potatoes, while he started up a good fire.