"Tell it to Johnson," scoffed Herbert. "I've always been that way; smoking doesn't have anything to do with it. Besides, if it did I couldn't leave off. I've got the habit for fair."
"I wouldn't like to say that; I'd hate to own up to it."
"Oh, it's nothing. Cigarettes never killed any one yet, old women and moralizers to the contrary, notwithstanding. Well, chum, how are you fixed? Did you make a raise so that you can bet a little cold cash on the great contest to-day? You said you thought you'd have some money this——"
"'Sh!" hissed Roy, glancing around apprehensively toward the house. "Don't talk about that here."
"Eh? Why not?"
"I don't want my folks to find out anything about it," whispered Hooker. "Come on, let's walk up the street."
At the corner above they turned into High Street, coming finally to the white Methodist church.
"Let's stroll around behind the church, where no one will see us," proposed Hooker.
"Like a pair of plotters on foul intentions bent," laughed Herbert. "To watch you manoeuvre, one might get the fancy that you were involved in some desperate and terrible piece of work."
"Now, look here, Herb," said Roy, facing his companion behind the church, "you're situated differently from me, and you can't seem to understand my position. You don't belong in Oakdale, and you don't care a rap what the fellows around here think of you or say about you."