“Piffle! Grow’s just as good a tackle as Morgan was,” declared Spud. “Only they wouldn’t give him a fair show last year. And—”
“Where’s my new fidus?” interrupted Ned Brent, appearing through the doorway with his hands thrust into the pockets of a pair of voluminous homespun trousers and viewing the group severely. “I want to see what I draw.”
“Hope you draw something awful,” said The Fungus maliciously. “Hope he has red hair and a mole on his nose and snores like sixty and—and—”
“Hello!” exclaimed Sandy, sotto voce. “See who’s here!”
Around the corner of the house, from the direction of the park, appeared a fairly tall and slender youth of fourteen from whose sun-browned face a pair of gray eyes looked curiously and embarrassedly at the group. He swung a shiny imitation leather satchel as he advanced along the path.
“Pipe the tie,” whispered Spud in Hoop’s ear.
“And the trousers,” returned Hoop with a grin. The Fungus watched the newcomer’s approach with a broad smile of unholy joy. At the foot of the steps the youth stopped.
[“Is this West House?” he asked], his eyes travelling from one face to another. There followed intense silence. Sandy, as House Leader, had the right to the first word and Sandy was taking his time. Meanwhile six pairs of eyes were fixed critically on the new boy, ranging from the cheap yellow shoes, very dusty from the journey, over the misfit trousers and the jacket whose sleeves were too long, lingering on the vivid red tie, loose and stringy from much wear, and lighting at last on the battered straw hat with its very blue ribbon. And the new boy, painfully aware of the scrutiny, shifted from one foot to the other and grew red under his dark tan. At last Sandy spoke.
“This,” he drawled, “is Occidental Mansion.”
“Oh!” said the boy. “Then where—” But he understood the next moment and smiled a little.