“What do you want to do?” he gasped. “Knock the building to pieces?” Dan laughed gayly as he tossed his cap onto the window-seat.
“If I do,” he answered, “I’ll build a new one and a better one, and I’ll call it Vinton Hall. And I’ll see that you have half a dozen pillows of your own, Jones, so that you won’t have to use these two, which—” Here he deprived Tubby of half his support, sending him rolling against the wall like a football—“happen to belong to me, my friend.”
“I wasn’t hurting them,” declared Tubby in injured tones.
“Oh, no, just getting them nice and dirty,” answered Dan as he threw the pillows onto his own bed, “and—Hello, you’ve been eating that messy popcorn again! It’s all over the shop. Jones, do you know you’re an awful little fat pig? You ought to have a sty of your own, you really ought!”
“Look here, Vinton—” began Tubby wrathfully.
But Dan strode over to Tubby’s bedside and with his hands in his pockets viewed the recumbent one with a broad smile.
“Jones,” he announced, “if I hear one tiny little grunt from you, one fretful squeal, I’ll turn you over and paddle you with your own tennis racket!”
And Tubby was so amazed at the sudden transformation of his sober, taciturn room-mate that he could merely gasp open-mouthed until it was too late for a suitable reply. So he relapsed into a silent condition of wounded dignity, while Dan raked his football togs out of the closet and examined them closely, whistling merrily the while.