Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/106

Rh from the field, Fudge pulled his feet after him wearily and groaned every few yards.

"I'll be as stiff as a crutch to-morrow," he sighed pessimistically. "F-f-for two cents I'd tell Guy to find someone else to put his old shot for him. I d-d-didn't agree to be a b-b-b-blooming slave!"

Still, he managed to drag himself around to Perry's after supper and until it was time for the theater to open they watched the window across the yard. But they saw nothing, not even a light. Fudge feared that their quarry had flown and accused Perry of scaring him away. "He probably saw you watching him and has skipped out. Bet we'll never see him again!"

"But I'm quite sure he didn't see me," expostulated the other. "He didn't look up once."

"That's what you think. He must have seen you. Well, there goes five hundred dollars!"

"You don't even know there was any reward for him, so what's the good of grouching about it?"

But Fudge refused to cheer up and presently took his departure gloomily. It is very easy to be a pessimist when one is weary, and Fudge was very weary indeed!