“Yes, but we don’t want to leave anything undone,” said Connie cautiously. “A radio set is a radio set.” Then he added, “But don’t think I’m worrying; all I have to do is to look at that scarf pin of yours—and I’m satisfied. What kind of a stone is that anyway?” he asked, scrutinizing the pin curiously.
“It’s an opal,” Wilfred said. “I guess that’s why I never had much luck; they say they’re unlucky, opals. I got diphtheria right after I got this. They say everything goes wrong with you if you have an opal.”
That was the first reference that Wilfred had ever made to his recent illness and it showed, somewhat, how he was loosening up, as one might say, in the favorable atmosphere of the unsophisticated and admiring Elk Patrol.
“That’s a lot of bunk,” laughed Connie.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Wilfred said in his whimsical, half-serious way. “As soon as I got that pin my mother lost some money, and my sister put some cough medicine in a cake instead of vanilla, and a looking-glass got broken on our way to Bridgeboro and that made things worse, and then I started falling down——”
“Oh, nix on that, you didn’t fall down,” said Bert McAlpin. “That’s a closed book.”
“Oh, I mean in Bridgeboro, I went kerflop,” said Wilfred; “and my jacket got all torn and I had to stay home from school——”
“You don’t call that bad luck, do you?” Connie laughed.
“And the Victrola broke,” said Wilfred, “and I lost a collar-button and, let’s see—I didn’t get a radio.”
“You make me weary,” laughed Connie.