“Sorry, because I haven’t got fifty cents to my name, and won’t have until Monday. What do you want to do with it? Going to start a bank?”
“That’s none of your business,” answered Wayne; “and if you can’t lend it to me I can’t stop chinning here. I’ll try Paddy, I guess.”
“Paddy!” exclaimed Don, with a grin. “Why, Paddy never has a nickel ten minutes after his dad sends him his allowance, which is the first. If he had I’d be after him this minute; he’s owed me eighty cents ever since September. Dave might have it. Have you had dinner? Where did you go to?”
“Dinner? No, I forgot about it. What time is it? Am I too late?”
“Of course; it’s twenty after two. What have you been doing?”
“Oh, I’ve--” Wayne’s face grew cloudy as he jumped off the end of the table and went to the door. “I’ll tell you about it later. I’m busy now. Has Dave got a recitation on?”
“What’s to-day--Thursday? I’m sure I don’t know. I never can keep track of his hours; seniors are such an erratic, self-important lot.”
“Well, I’ll run over and see. Er--by the way, do you know a chap called Gray, a rather pasty-looking lower middle fellow?”
“Gray? No, I don’t think so. What does he do?”
“Do? Oh, I think he’s a baseball player, or something like that.”
“Don’t remember him. Are you coming up here after four?”
Wayne clattered off downstairs and crossed the green back of the gymnasium and the principal’s residence. As he went he drew a little roll of money from his vest, supplemented it with a few coins from his trousers’ pocket, and counted the whole over twice. He shook his head as he put the money away again.
“Nine dollars and forty-two cents,” he muttered, “and I can’t make any more of it if I count it all day.”
He ran up the steps to Hampton House, pushed open the broad, white door and entered the big colonial hallway. At the far end a cheerful fire was cracking in a generous chimney place, lighting up the dim gilt frames and dull canvases of the portraits of bygone Hilltonians that looked severely down from the walls. Hampton House is a dormitory whose half dozen rooms are inhabited by a few wealthy youths who find in the comfort of the great, old-fashioned apartments and the prestige that residence therein brings compensation for the high rents. Wayne turned sharply to the right and beat a tattoo with his knuckles over the black figure 2 on the door. From within came the sound of a loud voice in monotonous declamation. Wayne substituted his shoe for his knuckles and Paddy’s voice bade him enter.