Page:Dave Porter in the Far North.djvu/74

56 "I mean, what are you going to pay us for listening, Shadow?"

"Oh, you go to Jericho!" growled the story-teller of the school. "Well, this is about two men who hired a room in a hotel. It was in the summertime and the room was very hot. They opened the window on the court, but it didn't let in enough air. In the middle of the night one of the men got up in the dark. 'What you doing?' asked the other man. 'Looking for another window to open,' says the man who was up. Pretty soon he touched a glass and found what he thought was a window opening sideways. 'There, that's fine!' he said. 'It's pretty breezy—guess I'll pull up the cover a little,' said the other man, and then both slept well until morning. When they got up they found that the one fellow had opened the door to an old bookcase in a corner."

"Very breezy story," was Roger's comment.

"Quite a refined air about it," remarked Ben.

"How did opening the bookcase make the room cooler?" demanded Dave, innocently.

"Why, it didn't. The man thought"

"But you said he was cooler. He even pulled up the cover on the bed!"

"Certainly. He got the impression"

"Who?"

"The man. He thought"

"How could he think if he was asleep, Shadow?"