Allan acknowledged that he wouldn’t.
“Then there was a fellow I heard of who was agent for a sporting-goods firm and sold on commission. He worked up quite a trade, but it took him a good while to do it. Then there was a fellow had a rental business: rented rooms and got a commission from the landladies; but he did most of his business in the fall. Then—” Tommy paused, struck by a brilliant thought. “You might try for a place on the Purple,” he cried. “They elect new men in March. If you got a place, you’d make fair money from March on to the end of the year. That’s what I did last year, and I made enough to pay my board.”
“But I don’t know anything about reporting, Tommy,” Allan objected. “Besides, I’m not a hustler like you.”
Tommy looked disappointed. He thought for a minute in silence. Then—
“I tell you, Allan,” he said, “I’ll see Stearns. He’s track-team captain, you know. I’ll tell him that if you don’t find something to do, you won’t be able to stay here. And he won’t want to lose you, you can bet, because he’s set his heart on winning from Robinson this spring.”
“But I don’t know that that would be quite true,” Allan objected. “Because, even if I don’t find any work, maybe I’ll be able to hang on here somehow to the end of the year.”
“Well, I won’t lie to him,” said Tommy, “but I’ll fix him so he’ll find something; you see if I don’t.”
He lifted Two Spot off his lap and deposited her on the desk, where she subsided contentedly against a pile of books and purred on as though nothing had happened.
“Happy little bunch of fur, isn’t she?” asked Tommy. “If she’s too great an expense to you, I’ll take her off your hands.”
“Indeed, you’ll not!” answered Allan. “While there’s a loaf left in the house, she shall have the crust.”