“Not so horrid,” commented Stanley as they strode after the boy into the apartment. “Small, but sufficient, eh?”
“Do they think we’re going to sleep three in a bed?” demanded Harley, aghast.
“They’re going to put in a cot for you,” said Jimmy comfortingly.
“For me!” Harley viewed him coldly. “How do you attain that condition, Jimmy? What’s the matter with your sleeping on the cot?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t rest well on the things,” he answered. “Maybe Stan had better—”
“We’ll draw lots,” said Stanley. He tossed a dime to the grinning bell-boy and then pulled three strands from the tattered fringe of the straw matting rug. “Short piece gets the cot. Help yourself, Mac.”
Stanley himself fell heir to the shortest straw and good-naturedly accepted his fate. “I’m the smallest, anyway,” he said. “Let’s wash up and look the place over. Any one for a swim?”
“I’d like a swim,” said Jimmy, “but it always gives me a fierce appetite, and I’m hungry enough right now to chew nails! Let’s sit on the porch and look wealthy. You don’t get so hungry if you sit still.”
Some two hours later the three boys were conducted across a large dining-room by an awe-inspiring head-waiter and seated at a table set for four. Jimmy looked approvingly at the crowded menu and passed it across to Harley. “Let’s not be choosey,” he suggested. “Let’s start right at the top and take things as they come.”
“Well, we can’t eat three kinds of soup,” said Harley.