Tom took the other chair, and Sid and Phil shared the dilapidated sofa between them. It creaked and groaned with their weight.
“I guess we’ll have to be investing in a new one, soon,” remarked Phil, as he tenderly felt of the sofa’s ‘bones’. “This won’t last much longer.”
“It will serve our time,” spoke Sid. “Don’t you dare suggest a new one. It would be sacrilege.”
Tired, but happy and contented, and in a glorious glow from their coasting, the boys began looking for their books, to do a last bit of studying before the signal for “lights out” should sound.
“Where’s my Greek dictionary?” demanded Phil, searching among a litter of papers on the table. “I’m sure I left it here.”
“The last I saw of it, you fired it at Dutch Housenlager the other day when he stuck his head in the door,” remarked Tom.
“Oh, here it is,” announced Phil, unearthing the volume from under a big catching glove. “Hello, Tom, here’s a letter for you! Special delivery, too! Must have come when you were out, and Wallops, the messenger, left it in here. Catch!”
He tossed the missive to Tom, who caught it, and ripped it open quickly.
“It’s from home,” he murmured, as he read it. Then a change came over his face--a change that was instantly apparent to his chums.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sid softly. “No bad news I hope, Tom.”
“Yes--it is--very bad news,” replied Tom softly.
There was silence in the room--a silence broken only by the ticking of the fussy alarm clock, which seemed to be doing its best to distract attention from the unwelcome letter. It was as if it were chanting over and over again:
“Come-on! Come-on! All-right! All-right!”
Finally the constant ticking got on the nerves of Sid, and he stopped it by the simple, but effective means of jamming a toothpick in the back of the clock, where there is a slot for regulating the hair spring.
“Is there--that is, can we--Oh, hang it, you know what I mean, Tom!” blurted out Phil. “Is there anything we can do to help you? If there is----”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Tom softly. “It’s some trouble dad is in, and--well, of course it may affect me.”
“It’s this way,” went on the Randall pitcher. “Dad, you know, is a farmer. That’s how he made what little money he has, and, in the last few years he laid by quite a bit. About a year ago, he was persuaded to invest it in a Western horse deal. He sunk about all he had, and--well, those Westerners double-crossed him. They got his money, and froze him out.”