Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/198

178 the smoke and blowing it through the nose. As they smoked they talked of many things, the conversation finally drifting around to Vera Rockwell and Mary Feversham.

"I understand Phil Lawrence is daffy over that Feversham girl," remarked Poole. "She is a fairly good sort, but she wouldn't suit me." He said this because Mary had snubbed him on several occasions when they had met in Oakdale.

"Well, I heard Roger Morr was daffy over that Rockwell girl," answered Merwell. "And I heard, too, that Porter was likely to cut him out."

"Porter cut him out!" exclaimed Nat Poole. "Who told you that? Why, Dave Porter is too thick with Jessie Wadsworth to think much of anybody else."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes. Why, when Porter is home the two are as thick as can be. I am sure that Jessie Wadsworth thinks the world of him, too, although why is beyond my comprehension," added the dudish student. He had not forgotten how Jessie had also snubbed him, when invitations were being sent out for her party.

"Humph!" Link Merwell puffed at his cigarette in silence for a moment. "You say they are thick,—and still he goes out with this Vera Rockwell. Kind of funny mix-up, eh?"