Laughlin obeyed, and Wolcott, drawing on the thin woollen gloves, plunged his hands into his pockets and wondered how the fellow could think of facing the wind with hands so poorly protected. Long before the carefully driven sleigh reached the edge of the town Wolcott’s fingers were numb.
Laughlin’s sled came safely, though belated, to the home stable. The next morning the musicians turned out at an early hour to see what kind of a vehicle it was that had brought them home. And when they had examined it, they brought their friends and explained to them the marvel. Only Marchmont showed no interest; he had had quite enough of sleds the night before.
“Hello!” cried Marchmont, as Lindsay opened his door a few evenings after the Eastham concert. “Thought you were dead.”
“I’ve been busy,” replied Wolcott; “I’m on for a debate at the Laurel Leaf Saturday, and I’ve been studying up my side.”
“So you belong to that, do you?” commented Marchmont, with good-natured contempt. “I suppose you joined to please the old man.”
“Partly,” answered Wolcott; “and partly because I thought I might get some good out of it.”
“I was thinking of putting you up for the Omega-Omicron. Like to join?”
“I don’t know,” said Wolcott, with an indifference more honest than polite.
“I shan’t urge you,” said Marchmont, significantly. “What’s the matter with you to-night? You look as solemn as your friend Laughlin.”
“Solemn or not, he was a pretty good friend to us all the other evening,” remarked Lindsay.
“I don’t see why the fellows made so much of that broken-runner business. Any common teamster could have done as well.”
“I’m getting sore on this monotonous life,” continued Marchmont. “Can’t we stir something up? I got a check to-day which I should like to celebrate on before I go on probation. Let’s go to Rivermouth.”
“Oh, see the town and have some fun—anything to break away from this place.”
Lindsay shook his head: “It doesn’t sound attractive. I’ve no wish to get fired.”
At another time Wolcott might have felt the sting of this taunt. The Eastham ride, however, which had not presented Marchmont exactly in the light of a hero, had considerably lessened the spell of superior cleverness and experience which the idealized boy cast over his follower. Marchmont’s merits were no less commendable in Wolcott’s eyes; but his faults were no longer wholly overlooked.