“Come in!” called a voice.
Dan entered. Before him, scowling interrogatively at the intruder, was the boy who had held his bag in the carriage.
[CHAPTER IV]
“28 CLARKE”
“Hello,” exclaimed Harry, alias “Tubby” Jones. “Who do you want?”
The tone was decidedly uncivil and Dan would have resented it had he been feeling less strange and lonesome. As it was he smiled ingratiatingly as he set down his bag.
“They told me at the office,” he replied, “that I was to room in 28 Clarke. This is 28, isn’t it? And you’re Jones, aren’t you?”
Tubby gave a growl of disgust.
“Gee, I knew I’d draw a freak,” he muttered. Dan heard and flushed. In momentary confusion he picked up his bag and deposited it on the window-seat at the end of the room. Tubby watched him with no attempt at concealing his disgust. Now, lest you gather the impression that our hero is a most unprepossessing youth, I’ll explain that Tubby Jones would have shown displeasure had his new room-mate been an Apollo in appearance, a Chesterfield in manners, a Beau Brummel in attire and a paragon of all virtues. Tubby, who, by the way, was none of these things himself, was what might be inelegantly called a chronic kicker. Tubby had a ceaseless quarrel with the world at large and things in general. He was a stout youth of sixteen with a round, pasty face on which there was habitually an expression of discontent and usually a scowl of sulky wrath. Tubby always had a grievance; he would have been dreadfully unhappy without one. Oddly enough, he was not unpopular in school, although he had few friends. The fellows never took him seriously—which was itself a grievance—and usually treated him with good-natured tolerance, using him as a butt for their jokes. The fact that Tubby couldn’t take a joke made it all the more fun.