“Here,” said Arthur, seizing the boy’s cap from the table and jamming it onto his head, “out you go! Down to the tennis courts and back three times for yours, kid. You’ve just got time for a nice constitutional before supper.”
“But I don’t want to go out, Arthur!” pleaded Harry. “And I was out, honest I was!”
“And you’re going again,” was the firm reply. “I’m not going to have you bleach out like a clump of celery right under my eyes. If you haven’t sense enough to take exercise yourself, why, here am I, little darling. Run along now!” And Arthur propelled him across the room to the door, Harry struggling unavailingly in his grasp. “There you are, Harry. Three times to the courts and back, mind. And I’ll be watching from the window; so don’t try any funny tricks. You can’t get into the gym now, because it’s locked by this time, so you needn’t try that on again.” The door closed behind the rebellious form of the youngster, and presently they heard his lagging footsteps on the stairs. Arthur went to the window and watched him started across the Yard. Then he threw himself into a chair.
“Honest, Gerald, that kid bothers me to death. I’d change my room if it wasn’t that someone’s got to look after him, and I suppose it might as well be me. Those stamps―― And, by the way, it was you started him going when you gave him your collection last year.”
“Oh, he was collecting before that,” said Gerald.
“Yes, I know, but you gave him about a million dollars’ worth of top-notchers, and now he’s trying to live up to them. Why, that little chump writes letters to the crowned heads of Europe, I believe, in the hope that he will get hold of something new in the way of stamps. And as for catalogues and price-lists and sheets on approval, why, sometimes I can’t find my books for the trash on top!”
“You certainly are in hard luck,” laughed Gerald. “You’d better join the S. P. M. and eradicate Harry and his stamps.”
Gerald told about Alf’s secret society, and Arthur chuckled with glee.
“That’s great,” he declared. “I’d like to join. Think they’ll have me?”
“I guess so. I don’t know, though, whether there are any offices left to be filled. You might have to be just a plain, every-day marauder.”