“How did you happen to stop the launch out there, anyway? Were you going to fish?”
Arnold nodded. “Yes, Frank said there’d be cod there. Then after we’d got the anchor over we found we’d forgotten to bring any bait.”
“Cod!” laughed Toby. “I guess a sea robin or a sculpin would have been about all you’d have caught. Who is this fellow Lamson?”
“He lives on the other side over there. He goes to school where I do.”
“Do you like him?”
“Like him?” Arnold had to consider that. “N-no, not a lot, I guess. Do you?”
“Not so far. He looks all the time as if he’d swallowed something that didn’t agree with him. And he pretty nearly said I had red hair!”
“Say, I’m sorry I said anything about—about your hair,” said Arnold contritely. “It was beastly rude.”
“Well, I’m sort of touchy about that,” replied Toby. “Of course my hair is—er—I mean when you look at it a certain way it does seem a little bit inclined to be reddish. It isn’t really red, you know, but it—it has a sort of tinge! Lots of fellows make mistakes about it. The first year I was in grammar school I was all the time—er—showing fellows how mistaken they were.”
“The same way you showed me?” inquired Arnold slyly.