Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/72

62 The last day sped by all too soon, and what the Tucker twins persisted in pessimistically designating the "fateful Thursday" was upon them.

"I don't know why you sigh so frequently," dimpled Betty, who sat next to Tommy Tucker at the breakfast table. "I'm very anxious to go to school. Don't you really like to go back?"

"It's like this," said Tommy, the "dark Tucker twin," solemnly. "From four to ten p.m. (except on drill nights) I like it well enough, and from ten, lights out, till six, reveille, I'm fairly contented. But from nine to four, when we're cooped up in classrooms, I simply detest school!"

Teddy, the "light Tucker twin," nodded in confirmation.

"I suppose we have to be educated," he admitted, with the air of one making a generous concession to public opinion, "but I don't see why they find it necessary to prolong the agony. Any one who can read and write can make a living."

"Perhaps your father hopes you'll do a bit more than that," suggested Mr. Littell slyly.

This effectually silenced the twins, for their wealthy father was a splendid scientist who had made several explorations that had contributed materially to the knowledge of the scientific world, and he had lost the sight of one eye in a laboratory experiment undertaken to advance the cause for which he labored.