Page:Quinby and Son (1925).pdf/72

 rain-shedding qualities of the article. Umbrella sales showed a 200 per cent increase that week.

The game ended, the victorious juniors cheered the crestfallen freshmen, and the crowd broke up. Bert gave the magazine back to Dolf. A picture of the umbrella, hanging with the water cascading from it, lingered in his imagination. It had the thrilling qualities of a stunt, and he wondered how the spectacle would look in his father's window.

"What's the matter?" Bill Harrison asked. "You don't look so much like a sour pickle now."

"Oh, what difference does it make if I missed the game?" Bert answered. It was one of the sudden transformations of mood that happen to boys. Umbrella and hose! And maybe twenty-five pounds of sugar under the umbrella to show that no water was coming through. He was sure that that would make people stop and stare. It had the appeal of a circus.

He was upstairs, washing, when his father came home for the evening meal. A word reached his ears, and he paused with his face half-dried. That word had been "Busher."

"Sure," he muttered. "She can make me go back twice, but it's a crime if I ring her bell so she'll hurry." He snapped the towel back on its rack and came downstairs with smoldering eyes.

"What happened at Mrs. Busher's to-day?" his father asked with ominous quietness.

"She gave me fits."