St. George stood aghast, looking after him.
"Did your mother say so?" he asked at length, hoping, from his knowledge of the Bangs family, that a reprieve might yet arrive from the true head of affairs there.
"Yes," said Wilfred gloomily, "she's worse than father about it, and determined that he sha'n't give in." St. George looked pityingly at him.
"Well, it can't be helped," he said, longing to bestow something better.
"Of course it can't," cried Wilfred, whirling around; "a plague upon you for saying that."
"You wanted me to say something," contributed St. George.
"I know it. But why don't you say 'I told you so,' or, 'If you hadn't been a first-class idiot you'd have dropped that last confounded skate!' Then I could fight you. As it is now, there isn't anything to strike against."
"I'm as sorry as you are," said St. George dubiously, overlooking his ill-success in the matter of conversationally pleasing his friend; "whatever shall I do without you?" There was such genuine regret in his voice and manner, that Wilfred forgot his irritation, and began to look mollified.
"We've had awful good times," he said, coming up to the work-bench again.
"I should think we had," declared St. George in that hearty way of his that made all the boys willing to call him "capital."