“If you only knew a little algebra and geometry!” he exclaimed, enthusiastically, “you’d be a treasure to the Academy. Won’t we have fun!”
“How’s that?” asked Bar.
“Why, of course you don’t know,” said Val. “Wait till we get there, though. I just want some of those country fellows to try on their games again. I was almost alone last term, and they were too much for me. Got awfully thrashed twice, and I’m just dying to try ’em on again. Been training for it all vacation. But you’re worth three of me.”
“I’ll back you,” shouted Bar. “But then,” he added, “I thought we were going to the Academy to study?”
“So we are,” said Val, “and I wouldn’t disappoint my mother for anything, nor my father, either, but you can’t study all the while, and there’s any quantity of fun in the country.”
They were coming down the stairs from the gymnasium into the street, while they were talking, and just then, as they reached the sidewalk, Bar grasped his friend’s arm with:
“Val—Val—let’s hurry. There’s a man I don’t want to have see me.”
Val moved quickly enough, but he should not have looked at the same time, for he thereby attracted the attention of a large, showily-dressed man, seemingly some sort of a gentleman whose eyes they might otherwise have avoided.
“Aha! my young fellow! Have I found you? What have you done with my valise? Come right along with me, now. I’ve been hunting you for a week. Come along, Mr. Jack Chills.”
Bar’s cheeks had turned a trifle pale at first, but they were blazing red now. It seemed to him as if all his “new time” were suddenly in peril, and he determined not to lose it without an effort.