“Well, we’ll tell her we’ll take two breakfasts for awhile. That will cheer her up, maybe. Shall I make the dicker?”
“Yes, she doesn’t like me. And I don’t like her. So that’s even. What class are you going into, Rowland?”
“Third, unless I trip up. What’s yours?”
“Second. Wish we were in the same. It makes it easier if you’re with a fellow who’s taking the same stuff. There’s another thing, too; that bed’s fierce. See if she hasn’t got a better mattress.”
“I was going to buy one,” said Ira. “I guess hers are all about the same, don’t you?”
“Well, make a stab,” said Nead. “She may have one that hasn’t been slept on twenty years. What are the other fellows here like?”
“Don’t know. I’ve seen only one, the fat fellow across the hall. There must be quite a lot of them, because she says she has all the rooms rented, and there are four rooms on each floor.”
“Nine rooms altogether,” Nead corrected. “There’s one on the ground floor at the back that she rents. It’s behind the spring-water place. I suppose there are two in some rooms. Must be twelve or fourteen fellows in this dive, eh?”
“Maybe,” agreed Ira, pushing away from the walnut table on which the breakfast tray had been placed. “Do you know any fellows in school?”
“No, do you?”