Then Coach Mulford came in, and the die was cast. Laurie waved a nonchalant hand to Dave Brewster. In appearance he looked as care-free and untroubled as any person there, but to himself he was saying bitterly, “There, you poor fish, you’ve been and gone and done it again!”
CHAPTER VII
POLLY APPROVES
Practice over, Laurie set out to find Ned. He was very low in his mind, was Laurie, and he wanted comfort in the worst way. But Ned wasn’t in the room. The door of No. 15, across the corridor, was half ajar, and through it issued the voice of Kewpie. “That you, Nid?” inquired Kewpie. “Say, come in here. I’ve—”
“No!” replied Laurie emphatically as he hurried, toward the stairs. Kewpie Proudtree was the last person in the whole world he wanted to hold converse with just then. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to control himself in Kewpie’s presence. Murder, he reflected gloomily, had been committed for less cause than he had!
He set out toward the Widow Deane’s, going the long way around, since he had no heart for Bob Starling’s questions and surmises regarding Mr. A. G. Goupil. He had so thoroughly forgotten that flinty-hearted person that he had not even looked on the table in No. 16 to see if the telegram had arrived, and only the thought of encountering Bob had reminded him of it. Turning into Garden Street, he heard some one call: “Oh, Ned! Oo-ee!” It was no new thing to be mistaken for Ned. During the first two months, or thereabouts, of their stay at Hillman’s, he and Ned had been daily, hourly, almost constantly mistaken one for the other, and even to this moment such mistakes were not uncommon, which, considering the fact that the twins were as alike as two peas, was not unnatural. He wasn’t Ned, but he turned to see who was calling. It proved to be Mae Ferrand. She was on the opposite side of the street waving to him. Laurie crossed with little enthusiasm.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m looking for him, too, Mae.”
“Oh, it’s Laurie!” she exclaimed. “I do wish you boys wouldn’t dress just alike!”
“We don’t,” said Laurie somberly. “He’s wearing brown stockings, and I’m wearing green.” He looked down at them. “Sort of green, anyway.”