I am afraid the Lakerim eleven had the bad taste to do a little gloating over the Crows. Their wit was not always of the finest, but they enjoyed it themselves, though little the Crows liked it, and it kept them all unusually happy for many days—
All except Reddy. He showed a strange inclination to "mulp"—a portmanteau word that Jumbo coined out of "mope" and "sulk."
VIII
To see the hilarious Reddy mulping was very odd. About the only subject in or out of books that seemed to interest him in the slightest degree was the mention of the name of his twin brother, Heady; and that, too, in spite of the fact that the two of them had quarreled and bickered so much that their despairing parents had finally sent them to different schools. But now Reddy seemed to be inconsolable, grieving for the other half of his twin heart.
Finally the boy's blues grew so blue that no one was much surprised when he announced his desperate determination to journey to the town where Heady was at school, and visit him. Reddy got permission from the Principal to leave on Friday night and return on Monday. He had been saving up his spending-money for many a dismal week, and now he went about borrowing the spending-money of all his friends.
One Friday evening, then, after class hours, all the Lakerimmers went in a body down to the railroad-station to bid Reddy a short good-by.
Jumbo felt inclined to crack a few jokes upon Reddy's inconsistency in struggling so hard to get away from his brother, and then struggling so hard to go back to him, but Tug told Jumbo that the subject was too tender for any of his flippancy.
On reaching the depot they found that Reddy's train was half an hour late, and that a train from the opposite direction would get in first. So they all stood solemnly around and waited. When this train pulled into the station you can imagine the feelings of all when the first one to descend was—
Was—
Heady!