“I mean to. I mean to take the shortest and lightest one I can find. Can you give me a lesson after football practice this afternoon, Jeff?”
“Yes, but you’ll be too tired, won’t you?”
“I never tire,” replied Poke grandly. “I’ll meet you on the gym steps at five sharp.”
“It will be almost dark by that time,” Jeffrey objected.
“Never mind. We’ll take a lantern, Jeff. Maybe, though, we can start before five. You be there at a quarter to. Or, better still, you go down to the boat-house and get your canoe over and ready, and I will come as soon as I can skip off. How’s that?”
“That’s better. I’ll be all ready for you at four-thirty, and you get there as soon as you can. I’ll put you in the stern this time.”
“All right. I wonder how a little resin would go on my hands. They’re getting full of blisters!”
Poke’s challenge created quite a sensation at dinner time. Gil told him he was a chump, and Jim, without actually saying so, confirmed the judgment. Only Hope refused to see defeat in prospect.
“Of course you can beat him!” she declared cheerfully. “I think Brandon Gary is a perfectly horrid boy!”
“That doesn’t alter the fact that he’s a pretty good chap with the paddle,” said Gil dryly, “or that Poke doesn’t really know one end of a canoe from the other.”