“’Bye,” answered Gerald from behind a towel. “Call again, Georgie.”
“Perhaps I will some day. By the way!” Kirk stopped at the door. “What sort of a chap is that Cotton? I mean the fellow who rooms with The Duke. All right, is he?”
“All right?” echoed Gerald. “I’d say he was pretty much all wrong. There’s no harm in him, though, I guess. Ask Kendall. He’s a great chum of Kendall’s. Thick as thieves, they are!”
“Oh, well, I guess he’s all right, then,” said Kirk. “I asked because——” He stopped, looked thoughtfully puzzled a moment and then, nodding, went out.
“Wonder what Cotton’s done to him,” said Gerald cheerfully. “If I were a punster I’d say it was evident Kirk doesn’t cotton to him. But I’m not, and so I won’t. Did I hear you murmur your thanks?”
“Eh?” asked Kendall blankly.
“Well, where have you been? Still thinking of what a wonderful time you had on the river?” Gerald seemed a little disgruntled over that.
“No, I was just—just thinking.”
What he had been thinking was that if he succeeded in making the Scholiast and the Golf Team, he would be a pretty busy chap the rest of the year!
Just how the trick played on Gibson of Broadwood got out is not known. Neither Gerald nor Kendall divulged it, and The Duke refused to own to having spoken of the matter. But get out it did, for by Monday the whole school knew about it and was laughing delightedly. Even the Scholiast, most dignified of school publications, could not forebear a fling and the next issue contained at the bottom of a page this brief note: