“He doesn’t like me,” said Ramsey, after a moment’s hesitation, “and he’s always nagging at me. He calls me Percy and makes fun of me because I wear decent socks and underwear and things——”
“You ought to see ’em,” muttered Tubb scathingly.
“Please!” said Toby. “Ramsey’s doing the talking now. And what else, Ramsey?”
“Well, he’s—he’s always at it! It would make any fellow mad, I guess! And he says I’m fat!”
“All right. Now, Tubb, what’s your grouch?”
“Oh, he makes me sick, Tucker! Look at him! How’d you like to live with him all the time? Looks like a fat white toad!”
“I’d rather be a toad——” But Ramsey stopped under Toby’s warning look, and subsided in mutters.
“He says I don’t wash my neck and that I’m a country greenhorn,” resumed Tubb. “He’s one of these Willie Boys from the city who think they know it all. He wears lavender and old-rose socks and the cutest little union suits you ever saw, Tucker. And—oh, he makes me tired!”
“Fine!” said Toby. “Now I’ll talk.” He turned to Ramsey. “Tubb says you’re fat, and so you are, Ramsey. You’re disgustingly soft and fat. You ought to be ashamed of it. If I were you I’d get rid of twenty pounds if I had to lose sleep to do it. Stop eating sweet stuff for a month, get outdoors and exercise. As for lavender socks, that’s your affair. If you don’t like being called Percy, don’t act Percy.” He turned to Tubb. “Ramsey says you don’t wash your neck, Tubb, and you don’t. At least, you don’t wash it enough. It’s not clean. I’ve noticed that myself. As for being from the country, why, you are, aren’t you? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, and if you aren’t ashamed of it you won’t mind being reminded of it. Now the real trouble with you two fellows is just this. You are both of you too much concerned with yourselves. You need to think about something else for awhile. Neither of you has a good big interest in life, and you need one. Know any game, Ramsey?”