When the waiter had departed Cal took another piece of bread, levied on Willard’s butter and spoke thickly. “Listen, fellows,” he said. “Tell you what we can do. We can get back at Hillsport.”
“Get back at it!” jeered Martin. “Get out of it’s what we want!”
“I mean we can do a little celebrating,” continued Cal, lowering his voice, although the tables were empty on each side of them. “Get me?”
“Not clearly,” answered Bob. “Elucidate, please. Also, kindly keep away from my butter, you big hog!” Bob removed his modest pat to a safer place, and Cal, foiled, ate the remainder of the slice unbuttered.
“Have you forgotten what they did to us last year?” he demanded indignantly.
“Hardly! They licked us. And then they painted the score all over—I get you! By jiminy, that’s a corking scheme, Cal! We’ll do it! We’ll make this old burg as pretty as a picture! We’ll—”
“We’ll get in a peck of trouble,” interrupted Martin. “Not for me, thanks!”
“Oh, don’t be a piker,” begged Cal. “They did it to us and didn’t get into any trouble. What’s sauce for the sauce—I mean—”
“Is sauce for the saucer,” aided Bob. “Righto! We get your meaning, son. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be allowed some slight—ah—evidence of our joy. Hillsport got away with it, so why shouldn’t we?”
The arrival of supper interrupted further discussion of the matter, and it was not until the first intense pangs of hunger had been appeased that Martin returned to the subject. “We’d have to have paint and brushes,” he said discouragingly, “and we couldn’t get them at this time of night.”