“Enjoyed hearing you talk so much,” he said with a grin.
Kendall heard Ned go down the stairs whistling loudly. Then he turned, looked at the collar hanging on the mirror and sat down on the edge of his bed and dazedly tried to think it all out.
[CHAPTER XI]
THE MYSTERIOUS KICKER
What puzzled Kendall was why Ned Tooker had gone out of his way to be nice to him. Of course it was plainly to be seen that Ned was a creature of impulse, one who did about what came into his head, but, allowing all that, it wasn’t quite explained. Kendall was not impulsive himself, and while he had a strong capacity for affection, it was not his way to form friendships very readily. This made Ned Tooker’s behavior all the more strange to Kendall. Perhaps it had been just an evening’s prank, a means to pass an hour before bedtime, and perhaps Ned would have forgotten all about it to-morrow. But there was the promise to teach him golf, and, still more tangible evidence, there was one of Kendall’s lamentably few clean collars curled about the mirror-post and bearing the scrawling legend in the blackest of soft pencil marks, “2 Dudley.” Kendall put aside the problem for the moment with a sigh of despair and got ready for bed. But he hoped that Ned had been sincere, for the older boy had quite won Kendall’s heart.
If Kendall had known of a conversation which passed in Mr. Collins’s study that evening Ned’s sudden attachment would have been more understandable. Mr. Collins had asked Ned to come early as he had something to say to him, and Ned had arrived ten minutes before any of the others. Mr. Collins was standing in front of the little coal fire and Ned had shaken hands with him ceremoniously, a performance he always went through with on such occasions.
“Good evening, sir,” said Ned. “I trust I find you in good health.”
Mr. Collins replied that he was in the best of condition. Then Ned proceeded to hand an imaginary cane to an imaginary servant, draw off two imaginary gloves which in imagination followed the cane, remove an imaginary top hat with an air and finally, with a hitch of his shoulders, allowed the imaginary servant to remove an imaginary Inverness cape. It was a very clever bit of pantomime and never failed of applause. To-night Mr. Collins laughed appreciatively, laid a hand on Ned’s shoulder and drew him to the fire:
“Well, everything all right, Tooker? The Optimist Society making converts?”