"I am going to study--you just watch me; and if I do get to go to Plato----Oh, gee! you always have been a good influence----" He noticed that Doris Carson was watching them. "Well, I gotta be going. I've had a peach of a time. Good night." Doris Carson was expectantly waiting for one of the boys to "see her home," but Carl guiltily stole up to Ben Rusk and commanded: "Le's hike, Fatty. Le's take a walk. Something big to tell you." CHAPTER V Carl kicked up the snow in moon-shot veils. The lake boomed. For all their woolen mittens, ribbed red-cotton wristlets, and plush caps with ear-laps, the cold seared them. Carl encouraged Ben to discourse of Gertie and the delights of a long and hopeless love. He discovered that, actually, Ben had suddenly fallen in love with Adelaide Benner. "Gee!" he exulted. "Maybe that gives me a chance with Gertie, then. But I won't let her know Ben ain't in love with her any more. Jiminy! ain't it lucky Gertie liked me just when Ben fell in love with somebody else! Funny the way things go; and her never knowing about Ben." He laid down his cards. While they plowed through the hard snow-drifts, swinging their arms against their chests like milkmen, he blurted out all his secret: that Gertie was the "slickest girl in town"; that no one appreciated her. "Ho, ho!" jeered Ben. "I thought you were crazy about her, and then you start kidding about her! A swell bunch of chivalry you got, you and your Galahad! You----" "Don't you go jumping on Galahad, or I'll fight!" "He was all right, but you ain't," said Carl. "You hadn't ought to ever sneer at love." "Why, you said, just this afternoon----" "You poor yahoo, I was only teasing you. No; about Gertie. It's like this: she was telling me a lot about how Griffin 's going to be a lawyer, about how much they make in cities, and I've about decided I'll be a lawyer." "Thought you were going to be a mechanical engineer?" "Well, can't a fellow change his mind? When you're an engineer you're always running around the country, and you never get shaved or anything, and there ain't any refining influences----" The absorbing game of "what we're going to be" made them forget snow and cold-squeezed fingers. Ben, it was decided, was to own a newspaper and support C. Ericson, Attorney-at-Law, in his dramatic run for state senator. Carl did not mention Gertie again. But it all meant Gertie. * * * * *