“There’s something wrong with him,” stated Polly convincedly. “I’ve noticed it for quite a while, more than two weeks. He looks dreadfully gloomy and unhappy, and he—he’s absent-minded, too. Just this afternoon he went off without thinking a thing about paying for a sundae and some cakes he had.”
Ned grinned but said nothing. Laurie winked gravely.
“And that’s another thing,” continued Polly. “It’s perfectly awful the way he eats sweet things, Laurie. He comes in every day and, if I’d let him, he’d make himself sick with cream-puffs and tarts and candy. It just seems as if he didn’t care what happened to him, as if he was—was desperate! Why, he told me to-day that maybe he wouldn’t play football any more!”
“I guess he was just talking,” said Mae.
“I don’t think so.” Polly shook her head. “He acts funny. Haven’t you noticed it, Laurie?”
“Yes, but he always did act funny. He’s a nut.”
“No, he isn’t; he’s a real nice boy, and you oughtn’t to talk like that. He’s unhappy, and we ought to help him.”
“All right,” agreed Laurie cheerfully. “What’ll we do?”
“Well, I suppose that first of all we should find out what’s worrying him,” answered Polly thoughtfully. “You—you have to know the disease before you apply the remedy.” Polly was plainly rather pleased with that statement, and so was Mae. Mae squeezed her friend’s arm in token of appreciation. Laurie allowed that it was a “wise crack” but wanted to know how Polly proposed to make the discovery. “Far as I can see,” he added, “Kewpie’s much the same as usual, if not more so. Although, to tell the honest gospel truth, I haven’t seen an awful lot of him just recently. I’ve been sort of keeping out of his way because he’s after me to see him pitch so’s I can ask Pinky to let him on the baseball squad.”
“It couldn’t be that, do you think?” asked Polly of the room at large. “I mean, you don’t suppose he’s hurt because you’ve been avoiding him? He might think that you’d gone back on him, Laurie, and I guess that Kewpie has a very sensitive nature.”