“Yes, Tommy, how about that dinner at the Elm Tree?” chimed in Hal.
“He’s making money to pay for it,” said Allan.
“No, I’m not,” answered Tommy, sadly. “That’s the trouble. You’ll have to wait a bit, Pete; I’m dead broke, honest Injun!”
“All right; just so long as I get that feed. Better not put it off too long, though; I’m nicely conditioned, you know, since the Midyears, and there’s no telling what may happen to me.”
“That’s so,” Allan said. “A fellow that’s been drowned, suspended, and put on probation, all in two short months, is a pretty slippery customer.”
“Say, Allan,” said Tommy, reminiscently, “do you remember the night we waited up here for that duffer to come home?”
“The night he was drowned?” asked Allan. “Never’ll forget it. The way the wind howled and cut up was a caution; made me think of graveyards and—and corpses.”
“Me, too,” said Tommy. “I went back to the room and dreamed of Pete floating in my bath-tub, with his old smelly pipe in his mouth and his face all white and horrid. Every time he puffed on the pipe he winked his eye at me, and I woke up yelling like a good one.” Tommy arose from his seat and stood gazing into the flames. “It was a beast of a dream.”
“Must have been,” Hal responded, sympathetically. Pete puffed silently at the afore-mentioned pipe and grinned heartlessly. Tommy glanced over at him and commenced an aimless ramble about the room.