“‘Oh, Miss Bernard, gentle sperrit! For you I sigh, beyond your merit—’”
“Max Eliot, you hold your tongue,” interrupted Louis, blushing and wrathful. “You make up stories faster than you can tell them.”
“What’s struck you to-day, Max?” asked Alex. “You’re even wilder than usual.”
“Aren’t we all Wilders, I’d like to know? But I feel unusually hilarious; I’m invited to a great and glorious spread to-night, and it excites me, don’t you see?”
“Frank Osborn. It’s his birthday, I believe; anyway, he’s going to have a great time of it.”
“Say, Max, I wouldn’t go,” said Alex persuasively.
“Not go! Why not, I’d like to know?” returned Max.
“Osborn isn’t any sort of fellow for you to be with,” Alex answered, with a troubled look on his pleasant face. “I thought your liking for him had died the death, anyway.”
“So it had, for we had a little row; but that’s all over now,” said Max carelessly. “I don’t think Osborn’s a bad fellow, though, Alex.”
“He’s not my style, and I don’t like him at all,” returned Alex; “I think he’s fast, and I hate to have him think he’s going to get in with any of our set. I’d cut his acquaintance and let him go, Max.”
“Maybe I will, after I’ve had a taste of his spread,” answered Max, laughing. “You seniors don’t like him because he won the race for ninety-two; but it was a magnificently plucky thing to do, you know it was.”
“If you want my candid opinion of Osborn,” said Jack deliberately; “he’s a low-bred sneak and a disgrace to Flemming. He did do a plucky thing when he jumped overboard; but he’s been insufferably conceited about it ever since, too cockahoop for anything.”
For a minute Max glared at Jack, with an angry gleam in his blue eyes; but Harry interrupted them,—
“Oh, come now, you fellows, don’t get into a row. There isn’t room here. Besides, I’ve never noticed that the fish came down the lake to look for us, and if we’re going to try our luck up above here, it’s time we were starting.” And he took up his oar, letting its blade fall into the water, with a splash which sent the drops flying into the faces of the belligerent boys around him.
It had the desired effect of cooling their tempers; and the boys rowed away up the lake, the long, steady sweep of the oars sending the tiny waves far to the left and right of their track. The shadows from the bank had grown long upon the water, as the boys skirted the little island and then struck off towards the eastern shore. As they neared the bank, Max rose and peered eagerly over the bow of the boat.