Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/178

 very fond of one another, but they had been together so much that all the mystery of personality had been rubbed off, and they weren't old enough to appreciate what good friends they really were to one another.

When they heard that Elliot wanted to come, they said: "Why, yes, we've nothing against Bob." They needed a new element.

Elliot thought he was rather favoring them in coming; they did not look at it in that way. They were under the impression that they were the best all-round crowd in the class, and the only reason that he was allowed to cherish this newest delusion of his for some time was that they did not discover its existence at first.

Then by and by Mason, one of those who had been at the same prep. school and knew him better than the others, began to perceive it and to show him so by a few little pleasantries.

Elliot had been a big boy at school when Mason was a little boy at school, and Elliot had an idea that their mutual attitude was still relatively the same. So he continued to