"Are you in dead earnest, Nugget?" asked Randy after a pause.
"Of course I am," was the aggressive reply. "I don't see anything funny about it though. I haven't been very well lately, and father let me stop school a month ahead of time, and come over here. I know he'll let me go canoeing if I write and ask him."
"But canoeing is vastly different from the kind of trips you made with us last summer," said Ned. "There is a good deal of hardship about it. You remember what a fuss you used to make over the merest trifles."
"You'll have to wear rough flannels and old clothes," added Randy. "You can't take kid gloves and patent leathers with you."
"And you'll have to sleep on the ground," put in Clay, "and eat coarse food. No chocolate cake and ice cream about canoeing."
"Oh, stop your chaffing," drawled Nugget sullenly. "I understand all that. I'm not as green as you think. If you fellows can stand it I can. Besides I've been practicing on the Harlem River this spring. I paddled a canoe from the Malta boathouse clear to High Bridge and back. And I didn't raise a single blister."
"I'll bet you wore gloves," said Clay mockingly.
Nugget flushed with anger and confusion, but said nothing.
"It's time to stop that now, Clay," said Ned authoratively. "If Nugget wants to go along I don't see any serious objections. No doubt the trip will do him lots of good. But that question can be settled later. Give us some light, Randy, and I'll show you what I've got here."