To Walter King it seemed as if the closing period of his captivity would never be at an end. He studied rebelliously, and with only a half—nay, rather a quarter—of his mind on his lessons. All his thought was centered around Surfside and the novel experiences that beckoned him there. So impatient was he to begin his new duties that he found it impossible to settle down to anything.
"You'll be failing in your last examinations, Walter, if you don't watch what you're doing," cautioned his mother. "And should you do that, little profit would it be that you are hired out to Mr. Crowninshield for the summer. In the fall you'd have to stay behind your class, and think of the disgrace of that! Why, I'd be ready to hide my head with shame! Money or no money, you must buck up and put the Crowninshields and their doings out of your head. To lose a year now would mean just that much longer before you could graduate and take a regular job. I almost wish Jerry Thomas had never asked you to come up there, I do indeed."
"Oh, don't go getting all fussed up, Ma," returned His Highness, irritated because he recognized the truth of his mother's words. "I'm going to buckle down until the term is over, honest I am. It is hard, though, with the weather so fine. It seems as if I must be out. It's like being on a leash."
"You're thinking of those dogs again!"
The lad flushed sheepishly.
"No, I wasn't."
"But you were—whether you realized it or not. It is all you talk of nowadays—dogs! What it will be after they get here and you're up at Surfside living with them I don't know. Whatever else you do, though, you must not fail in your lessons and at the last moment spoil your whole year's record. School is your first duty now and you have no moral right to put anything else in its place."
"I know it, Ma," Walter agreed.
"Of course you know it," was the tart response. "Just see that you do not forget it, that's all."
With this final admonition Mrs. King whisked about and taking up her cake of Sapolio and pail of steaming water ascended the stairs. Like the rest of Lovell's Harbor she was busy as a bee in clovertime. She had rented all her rooms and had so many things to do in preparation for her expected guests that she had not a second to waste.