Page:The Eight-Oared Victors.djvu/262

248 "It sure was rotten," said Tom musingly, as he sat staring vacantly at nothing. No one took the trouble to comment on his last remark. They had about exhausted their stock of bitter reflections and observations.

"Something's got to be done," went on Tom. Still no one answered him. The fussy little alarm dock ticked on, as though trying to be cheerful in the midst of all that gloom. It was as though it said:

"I wonder what we can do?" Tom mused on.

Sid shifted uneasily in one of the easy chairs. Phil duplicated in the other. Frank turned to a more comfortable position on the old sofa, thereby bringing forth creaks, groans and vibrations of protest from the ancient piece. Tom was trying to get used to an old steamer chair, that had been picked up, with other relics, at an auction held by a retiring senior the previous June, but as the chair had lost one leg, which had been replaced by part of a Turkish rocker, and as the foot-rest had, in some former day, been broken off and put back upside down, Tom's effort to be at ease was more or less of a failure.

"Something has got to be done!" went on the pitcher. Once more the silence.