“Jack Zanetti’s been at it four years, and he knows how to use what weight he has got. So will you when you’ve been playing that long. Now dry up and let me bone this beastly French rot. You’re worse than a magpie!”
“All right, old dear. But, I say, Bert, do you think that by next year——”
“For the love of mud, shut up! I want to get this done and hit the hay. If you had a rib that hurt like the dickens every time you moved or took a breath——”
Bert subsided with mutters and silence reigned.
CHAPTER XVII
FRIENDS IN NEED
Again, on Tuesday morning, there was no telegram, and when Hugh, at Bert’s suggestion, called up the telegraph office in the village he was informed that no message addressed to him had been received. Hugh was by now at a loss to explain his mother’s silence and Bert was anxious and a little bit unpleasant, intimating that Hugh had promised more than he could perform.
“I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble,” he said stiffly. “If I’d known, I might have got hold of the money somewhere else, I suppose.”
“You haven’t put me to any trouble, Bert, and I don’t understand why my mother hasn’t answered. The only explanation I can think of is that she has sort of dodged those telegrams, if you know what I mean. She might have left New York before the one I sent there was delivered and gone back to Shorefields. Then she may have gone to Philadelphia Sunday——”
“I should think she’d stay in one place a minute,” Bert complained. “Of course, if Fallow doesn’t come nosing around here before——”