“Ran up to the room a minute. Thought you’d wait, you dumb-bell.”
“I did wait. Then I thought you’d started over here. Whose wheel is that you’ve got out there?”
“Search me. Elk Thurston’s, I guess. I found it doing nothing in front of West. I’ll take a pineapple and strawberry, please, Polly.”
“Well, you had a nerve! Elk will scalp you.”
Laurie shrugged and accepted his refreshment. “I only borrowed it,” he explained carelessly. “Here comes the mob.”
The afternoon influx of Hillman’s boys was begun by two tousled-haired juniors demanding “Vanilla sundaes with chopped walnuts, please, Miss Polly!” and after them the stream became steady for several minutes. Further sustained conversation with Polly being no longer possible, Ned and Laurie took their glasses to the other side of the shop, where Laurie perched himself on the counter and watched the confusion. Ned’s eyes presently strayed to the array of pastry behind the further counter, and he sighed wistfully. But as Laurie, who was in training for baseball, might not partake of such things, Ned resolutely removed his gaze from that part of the shop, not without a second sigh, and, turning it to the door, nudged Laurie in the ribs with an elbow.
“Thurston,” he breathed.
Laurie looked calmly at the big upper-middle boy who was entering. “Seems put out about something,” he murmured.
“Say,” demanded “Elk” Thurston in a voice that dominated the noise of talk and laughter and the almost continuous hiss of the soda-fountain, “what smart guy swiped my bicycle and rode it over here?”
Elkins Thurston was seventeen, big, dark-complexioned, and domineering, and as the chatter died into comparative silence the smaller boys questioned each other with uneasy glances. No one, however, confessed, and Elk, pushing his way roughly toward the fountain, complained bitterly. “Well, some fresh Aleck did, and I’ll find out who he was, too, and when I do I’ll teach him to let my things alone!”