“I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t think that was awfully funny, anyway, Jimmy.”
Jimmy chuckled. “I do. And the others did. Cheer up, Dud. I’ll make a celebrity of you in spite of yourself!”
Later, back in Number 29 Lothrop, Bert Winslow laughed suddenly while he was getting ready for bed and Hugh, hearing, called across from his own bedroom.
“What’s the joke, Bert?”
“I was thinking of the one Jimmy Logan sprung; about the hockey team being weak from Star-vation. It isn’t so bad, eh?”
“Rather clever, but it was that chap Baker who said it, wasn’t it?”
“I guess so. But look here,” continued Bert, appearing in his doorway in the course of a struggle with his collar, “why is it Baker never gets off any of those things himself? It’s always Jimmy Logan who springs ’em. All Baker does is to sit and look glum. If he’s so all-fired clever why doesn’t he say something once in a while? I think he’s a bit of a pill.”
“He’s not so bad, I fancy,” replied Hugh. “Maybe you have to know him. Some chaps are like that, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, but——” Bert’s voice died out until he had at last wrenched the refractory collar from his neck. Then: “Here’s another funny thing, Hugh,” he said. “Jimmy lugs that fellow around every place with him; sort of butts in with him everywhere. You’d think Jimmy was a—a nurse-maid or something. Looks to me as if he was trying to introduce his young friend into Society. I wouldn’t care a bit if he forgot to bring him up here the next time.”
“What have you got against him?” inquired Hugh.