“I agreed to give you fellows a feed,” he declared, “if you got out a livelier issue of The Scholiast than we did. You didn’t. You called your sheet The Scholiant. That lets me out, don’t you see?”
Alf viewed him reproachfully, sorrowfully, and shook his head.
“Joe, that isn’t like you,” he replied. “That’s quibbling. It—it even savors of dishonesty. No, no, as your friends, we can’t allow you to take that stand. Truth is truth, Joe, and justice is justice. Be a man, Joe. Pay up, old sport!”
Joe looked about him for moral support, but the faces of Dan and Tom and Gerald expressed only disapproval and hunger.
Joe sighed and gave in.
[CHAPTER VIII]
GERALD LIES LOW
March hurried along toward April, and Spring Recess drew near. This lasted one week, and Gerald was not looking forward to it with much pleasure. His father was still absent from home, and Gerald would be forced to spend the vacation in the big house in Fifth Avenue, with only the servants for company. To be sure, Tom, who lived in New Jersey, had asked Gerald to visit him for a couple of days, and that would help some; but, on the whole, he expected to pass rather a dull and lonesome time. He had half a mind to remain at Yardley, where there would be at least a handful of boys whose homes were too far distant to allow of their making the journey. Dan, who lived out in Ohio, was to spend the recess with Alf in Philadelphia. Gerald had wanted Dan to come home with him, but Alf had spoken first. Gerald grew daily more down-hearted as the first of April approached.
To most of the fellows, however, the nearing vacation brought a restlessness and excitement that were manifested in a growing disinclination to study and an increasing inclination toward mischief. School was to close on Thursday, and the exodus was to commence Friday morning. By Tuesday even the baseball and track candidates exhibited a disposition to dawdle and loaf; and Payson, the baseball coach—he was football coach as well—had a few sarcastic remarks to make when the last practice was over Wednesday afternoon. His hearers, however, felt that he was justified, and were too contented with the outlook to resent the wigging he gave them.