Kid stared at the door for a full minute after it had closed. “Now what did he mean by that?” he asked himself crossly. “He always talks that way when he’s up to some mean trick!”
Of course everyone wanted to know why Lanny was buying up Tinkham’s Throat-Ease and Lanny’s replies were so far from satisfactory that he spent a most unpleasant evening. In the morning he was around bright and early, waiting for the day scholars to appear, but Nan was earlier. Lanny managed to make only two purchases at five cents a box before the news got around that Tinkham’s Throat-Ease was quoted at twenty-five cents. Waters found Lanny and offhandedly offered him twelve cents for the return of his box.
“I guess I’d better keep them, Lanny,” he said. “I might have a cold any time, you see. They’re nasty, but I guess they’re good for you. What do you say? Got my box with you?”
Lanny grinned. “Price has gone up, George, since you sold. They’re worth twenty-five this morning.”
Waters expressed his opinion of Lanny at some length, but Lanny didn’t wait to hear it all. He wanted to find Kid. It didn’t seem plausible to him that Kid had enough money on hand to redeem all the Tinkham’s that would be offered, and he wanted to get there early. But Kid was elusive. Sam Perkins didn’t know where Kid was and offered Lanny ten cents for the box of tablets he had sold the evening before for five. Lanny expressed his regrets and hurried away. The word that followed him sounded very much like “Cheat!” Not discovering Kid indoors, Lanny dashed outside.
“He’s hiding,” he muttered. “He doesn’t want to pay up!”
That, however, was not quite the true explanation of Kid’s absence from his usual haunts. To be sure, Kid did not want to “pay up,” but he was not hiding. He was facing Dr. Merton in the latter’s office, whither he had been summoned a few minutes before. No, Kid wasn’t hiding, but he wished he were!