Sam made no reply. He was watching Varley, who was talking to the clerk, but who finally wheeled, and returned to his companions, smiling a trifle uncertainly.
“I hope you won’t think I’m too much of a quitter,” he said, “but I may as well own up. I don’t fancy that hike back. So I’ve made a deal with that fellow to send us home in a sleigh. We can start whenever we’re ready. And—and I hope you won’t mind.”
It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to make protest, but Step spoke first.
“Mind? Not I! I’m not too proud to ride—not by a long shot.”
“Good! Then we’ll consider that settled,” said Varley quickly.
Poke shot a glance at Sam. “What did I tell you about doing things up brown?” he queried with a chuckle.
Again Sam said nothing. As it happened, it did not occur to him that he needed to say anything.
CHAPTER VII
THE SHARK LECTURES
The Shark was out of humor. He sat in a corner of the club-room, glowering through his spectacles at his fellow members, and quite ignoring the chess-board on the table beside him.
Now, though the Shark had a brusque manner and was often curt in speech, he really was a fellow of even disposition, and seldom became involved in disputes. One reason for this, perhaps, was the circumstance, observed by the philosophical Poke and by him communicated to the rest of the club, that “it was surprising how many things didn’t make any difference to the Shark.” Athletic rivalries did not excite him; school competitions, except in his specialty of mathematics, ordinarily had no interest for him; unless forced to do so, he gave no heed to school politics. The other members of the club might be in a fine state of mind over any of a dozen questions without stirring the Shark perceptibly. So it was all the more curious that this day, when his friends appeared to be getting along in harmony, the Shark was having a fit of the sulks or the blues. He had been working over a chess problem—working and growling, it must be confessed—and having failed to reach its solution, had pushed back the board and was regarding the others darkly and with hostility.