“Quarter past six.”
“Will those lucky chaps never come up from the lake? I’m almost starved! Where, oh, where has my tummie gone?” warbled Dick, as he resumed his dressing leisurely. “I’m ’most starved and I can’t pull my belt in another hole. ’Cause why? There isn’t any.”
“Patience, Dickie, patience. Take courage, don’t worry.”
Dick Bellamy breathed a sigh.
“Worry!” he echoed. “It’s not worry that is troubling me, it’s want of food. I’m ravenous! My insides are in such a state of emptiness that they resound like a drum. I could eat every scrap of a five-pound sirloin steak this very minute.”
“No, you couldn’t,” said Sam Winter, overhearing the remark as he passed by, dripping water from his limbs and hair. “No, you couldn’t,” he repeated, “not with me around! I’d defy you to get your lunch-hooks on it!”
Dick cocked an eye in Alec’s direction.
“Think of it, fellows,” he urged maliciously. “Think of a nice juicy steak an inch thick, cooked to a turn, and all covered with delicious crisp fried onions! Doesn’t that make your mouths water?”
The swimmer moaned and clapped both hands over his stomach.
“Don’t,” he begged, “don’t speak of it! I can’t stand it! It makes me feel faint!”