“What’s the matter?” asked Stanley.
“It’s that rotten paper again,” moaned Dick, casting the offending sheet to the floor and turning a disheartened gaze to the window. Stanley smiled, pulled the paper toward him dexterously with one foot, rescued it and read. And as he read he chuckled, and Dick, seeing what was happening, made a dash to wrest the paper away.
“No, get out of here! Let me read it, you simp!” Stanley fended Dick off with feet and one hand. “Everybody else has,” he laughed, “so why shouldn’t I?”
Dick scowled, shrugged, thrust his hands into his pockets and subsided on the window-seat. “Go ahead then,” he muttered. “But if you laugh I’ll kill you!”
So Stanley put the paper between them and made no sound, although certain twitchings of his hands aroused the other’s suspicions. When he was through Stanley lowered the paper from in front of a very serious countenance.
“Well?” said Dick morosely. “Say it, you chump!”
“Why, I—well, of course, Dickie, it’s a bit—a bit fulsome, you know, but I can’t see anything in it to be mad about.”
“You can’t, eh? Well, I can! What do you suppose dad thinks when he reads that sort of piffle? No wonder he wasn’t more—more cordial in his letter!”
“But the paper says a lot of very nice things about you, Dick,” protested Stanley. “That about the exclusive Banjo and Mando——”
“Oh, shut up!” growled Dick. “They make me sick.”