“What was wrong with him?” demanded Chick irritably.
“For one thing, he plays too good a game of pool. I wouldn’t be surprised, Chick, if you found out that playing pool is Devore’s real work.”
“Forget it! He doesn’t play as well as I do, and you can’t say that I make a—a profession of it!”
“He doesn’t yet,” answered Bert as he followed his companion up the steps of the dormitory, “but I have a hunch that that bird is going to improve fast!”
“Is, eh? Well, he isn’t going to improve any faster than I do,” replied Chick, with a comfortable laugh. “Come along Monday night and watch me pick the pin feathers off him!”
“No, thanks, I’ve had all the smoke I can stand for six months. Wonder why it’s against the law to ventilate a billiard hall!”
“Gosh, you’re getting as pernickety as an old maid!” jeered Chick. “Tobacco smoke’s good for you, old scout. Keeps the moths out of your system, and all that.”
“What do you think I am?” laughed Bert. “A parlor rug?”
Bert beat the clock and was in bed when its hands pointed to ten. Chick undressed more leisurely, reviewing his and his adversary’s performance, and was still solicitously slicking down his hair when the fateful hour was announced by the booming of the church bell across the campus.
“Orders,” remarked Bert, good-naturedly ironic, “don’t mean anything in your life, do they, Charles?”