[CHAPTER XX]
“The whole thing’s a big swindle!” declared Chester Baker in disgust. “Here I’ve been watching them ever since lunch, and what has happened? Not a thing! There hasn’t even been a false step!”
He turned away from the window and punched a cushion vindictively. Phillip laughed and took his place beside him, glancing upward at the source of Chester’s discontent. In the upper end of the Yard a little army of men in brown jumpers, armed with pruning-shears attached to bamboo poles, were swarming over the elms, waging a war of extermination against the brown-tail moths whose nests dotted the tips of the topmost branches.
“I shouldn’t want to be up there,” said Phillip.
“There isn’t the least danger,” answered Chester. “They never fall. They walk around up there, seventy feet or more from the ground, and balance themselves on twigs and leaves and poke those poles around and have a perfectly elegant time. Why, they won’t even make believe to fall or lose their balance or anything! Well, I’ve simply wasted two hours, that’s all.”
“It’s hard luck,” grinned Phillip.
“Oh, I suppose you don’t care,” complained Chester. “You have no art in your soul. I’m disgusted. For two hours I’ve sat here and waited patiently to see a body come hurtling downward. But nary a hurtle! Not one corpse has dropped with a dull, sickening thud upon the snow-covered ground. Not a speck of gore decorates the landscape. I shall write to the Crimson about it.
“By the way, Phil, talking of gore; there’s a peach of a show at the Bowdoin Square this week: ‘The River Pirates.’ They say it’s simply lovely. There’s one scene on the East River where a police launch chases the pirates, with a dandy fight; the launch blows up and a big ocean liner comes along just in the nick of time and rescues everybody. All right on the stage! It’s great! I’m going in Thursday evening; want to come?”
“No; I can’t, Chester.”