"And I'm hungry."
"Hungry?" snorted Darrin. "Of course you are. You fellows sang
a verse to me a while ago. Tom, how do you and your fellow-porkers
like this lay?"
Taking a deep breath, Dave started to sing a travesty, to the
air of "America."
_"My stomach, 'tis of thee,
Sweet gland of gluttony,
To thee I sing! Gland---"_
"Stop it," ordered Tom threateningly, as he advanced upon Darrin.
"Stings, does it?" inquired Dave sarcastically.
"Yes, it does," Reade retorted bluntly. "To my mind 'America'
is as sacred as any hymn ever written, and I won't hear it guyed!
That's no decent occupation for an American boy."
"That's right," nodded Greg Holmes.
"Well, I won't yield to any of you in being American to the backbone,"
Dave retorted hotly.
"Prove it," said Tom more quietly.
"I'll prove it by my whole life, if need be," Darrin went on warmly.
"Tom Reade, I'll be glad to meet you when we're sixty years old,
talk it all over and see who has been the better American through
life!"
"Great!" laughed Dick Prescott approvingly. "That'll be a fine
time to settle the question. And that time is---let me see---forty-six
years away."
The other boys were grinning now, and Dave and Tom, catching the
spirit of the thing, laughed good-humoredly.
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