“No bouquet at all,” answered Ned. “It’s the simple truth, and you know it.”
“Well,” said Tom, “I’ll do my best. I feel the old urge coming on, and I’m hankering to get at it. There’s just one thing that’s bothering me now.”
“What’s that?” asked Ned.
“Hankinshaw,” replied Tom.
CHAPTER VII
TROUBLE BREWING
Ned stopped in his work of gathering up his papers and looked inquiringly at Tom.
“Hankinshaw!” he repeated. “What about him? What have you got against him outside of his smoking vile tobacco?”
“A good deal,” answered Tom emphatically. “He’s just about as popular with me as a rattlesnake at a picnic party.”
“Why the snake?” asked Ned quizzically. “I’m not much of an authority on natural history, but I’d call him an old crab and let it go at that. What has he done especially that peeves you?”
“Several things,” replied Tom, who did not care to mention Mary’s name and tell of the annoyance she had experienced. “For one thing, I’m pretty sure that he was driving a machine last night that nearly sent me to kingdom come. Hogged the road and made me go into a ditch. Then grinned like a gargoyle as he whizzed past. I tell you for a minute I saw red, and it’s a lucky thing for him that I didn’t get my hands on him.”