“You bet! I’m starved. Hurry up before the seats are all gone.” Jimmy struggled heroically and finally disentangled his legs and stood up. “Get a move on, Dud! Maybe if we go now we can get three seats together.”
CHAPTER III
MONTY CRAIL CHANGES HIS MIND
Three minutes later they were established at a table and had ordered the first two courses, oysters and soup, accompanied by such trifles as celery and olives and mango pickles. They were already consuming bread and butter with gusto, or, at least, Jimmy and Dud were, for they had breakfasted very early. Crail was less enthusiastic about food, and while the others ate he took up the interrupted subject of Mount Morris School.
“The way I came to know about this place was seeing an advertisement in a magazine,” he confided. “It certainly did read well, fellows. I sort of got the idea that it was the leading educational institution of the country. Maybe I was wrong, though.”
“You certainly were,” said Jimmy, speaking rather indistinctly by reason of having his mouth very full. “Mount Morris never led in anything. Why didn’t you pick out a good school while you were picking?”
“I suppose it’s a mistake to believe all the advertisements tell you,” said Crail. “Well, I guess it’ll be good enough for me. I’m not very particular. If they give me enough to eat and treat me kindly and beat a little algebra and history and a few languages through my skull I won’t kick. Know whether I have to take Latin, fellows?”
“Depends on what class you enter, I suppose,” replied Dud, helping himself to Jimmy’s butter, to that youth’s distress and muffled remonstrances. “I guess you’ll have to take one year of it, anyway.”
“Snakes!” said Crail. “That’s sure disappointing. I never did have any luck with Latin. Sort of a half-baked language, I call it.” His sorrow was dispelled by the appearance of the waiter with the oysters, and he beamed approval and beckoned with his fork. “Sam,” he said confidingly, “you bring in six more of these little birds. I haven’t eaten a real nice fresh oyster for a long time.”
“Can’t serve no more, sir,” replied the waiter. “Only one order goes with a dinner.”