"You like the school, don't you?" said Finnegan in alarm.
Dink had never had the question put to him before. He was silent and his look went swiftly over to the coveted House of Lords. He drew a long breath.
"You bet I do. I love it!"
"What then?"
"I started wrong; didn't understand the game, I guess. They've put me in Coventry."
"You must have been pretty fresh."
"What!"
"Oh, don't mind me," said Dennis cheerfully. "I'm fresher than you ever thought of being. I was the freshest bit of verdure, as the poet says, that ever greened the place. I'm the freshest still. But I'm different. I'm under six inches—that's the cinch of it."
"Yes, I was fresh," said Dink, intensely relieved.
"You're always fresh if you're any good, the first term," said Finnegan. "Don't mind that. Next year you'll be an old boy, and then they'll follow you around for sugar."