“Oh, just a fellow who lives in town. Chick goes to see him now and then.”
Tommy accepted the explanation, but a close observer would have suspected that it didn’t altogether satisfy him. He laid the now empty box on the window-seat with a sigh of mingled regret and repletion, stretched his rather pudgy legs out and then startledly clapped a hand to the back of his neck. He wiggled his head sidewise several times, and then up and down, while Bert gazed at him in puzzlement. Finally he sighed again, this time with pure concern, and murmured: “Darn the luck! Another Job!”
“Another what?” asked Bert.
“Job. That’s what I call them,” explained Tommy, evidently very low in his mind. “Job had ’em, you know.”
“Had what?” Bert was still in the dark.
“Gee, don’t you read your Bible?” asked Tommy irritably. “Boils, of course! I’m always having ’em. Makes me sick. I’ll bet it’s the water here.”
“You don’t suppose eating so much has anything to do with it?” Bert inquired innocently. “Candy and peanuts and that sort of stuff?”
Tommy shook his head cautiously, once more extending an exploring hand to the back of his neck. “I don’t believe so,” he replied soberly. “I tried dieting once. Didn’t eat any candy for a whole month. But it didn’t make any difference. I had Jobs just the same. I guess it’s the water, maybe, or something. Guess I’d better go up and put stuff on it.”
“Too bad,” said Bert as sympathetically as he could manage. “I hope you won’t get it.”