Connie Bennett and Charlie O’Conner were busy setting a long stick upright from the cabin roof as Wilfred approached. “No time like the present, hey?” said Connie. “If we don’t need an aerial we can fly our pennant from it.”
“What do you mean if we don’t need an aerial?” Charlie asked. “How do you get that way?”
“He’s like Pee-wee Harris,” said Connie; “he’s absolutely, positively, definitely sure.”
Wilfred watched them for a few minutes, utterly sick at heart.
“This is only temporary for August,” Charlie called down from the roof. “Hand us up that other stick, will you?”
“I’ve got something to tell you,” said Wilfred, “and I won’t blame you for getting mad. I can’t go in the contest.”
Connie looked at him amused. “You joke with such a straight face——”
“I mean it,” said Wilfred earnestly; “I can’t do it. There’s no use asking me why. I can’t do it and you’ve got a right to call me a quitter—or anything you want.”
“What do you mean?” Connie asked, caught by his earnest tone. Charlie O’Conner slid down off the roof and stood, half-laughing, half-apprehensive.
“I mean just what I said,” said Wilfred soberly. “I found out I can’t swim in the contest. You’ll have to let one of the other fellows do it; Bert McAlpin——”
“Cut it out about Bert McAlpin,” said Connie. “What’s the idea, anyway? Are you kidding us?”
“No, I’m not,” Wilfred said earnestly. “I can’t do it and I mean it and you can call me a quitter.”
“If you mean it, I’ll call you something more than a quitter,” said Connie testily; “I’ll call you a——”
“A what?” said Wilfred, the lid of his left eye half-closing and quivering in that way of his.
“Cut it out,” said Charlie, “quitter is bad enough. Calling names isn’t getting us anything.”
“It might get you something,” said Wilfred.
“Will you cut it out!” said Charlie impatiently. “What’s the idea, anyway?”
“The idea is that I can’t swim in the contest,” Wilfred said, “and I came to tell you, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all, is it?” Connie sneered. “I guess you can’t swim at all, that’s my guess. Nobody ever saw you swimming.”
“Go on, he’s fooling!” said Charlie.
“No, he isn’t fooling either,” Connie shot back. “If it had been left for the tenth, he wouldn’t have told us yet. But now it’s only a few days off he has to tell us. Thanks very much for telling us in time, we’ll manage to put somebody in.”
“I’d like to know who?” Charlie asked.
“Oh, never mind who,” said Connie disgustedly; “somebody that isn’t a bluffer. We’re satisfied, go on and get out of the patrol——”
“I expected to do that,” said Wilfred mildly.
“You can bet you did,” Connie shot back. “You will if I’m patrol leader!”
“What’s the reason anyway?” Charlie asked, puzzled.
“Reason! How could there be any reason?” Connie repeated angrily.
“I’m not giving any,” Wilfred said.
“Why not?” Charlie asked.
“Oh, just because—beca............