Karl took the coins, and _I won't_!"

Nevertheless, Jack Stormways must have passed a miserable night; for the
anxious eyes of his mother noticed his distressed looks when he came down
to breakfast on the following morning.

"You don't look well, son," she observed, as she passed her cool hand
across his fevered brow; "I think you ought to step in and see Doctor
Morrison some time this morning, and let him give you something."

"All right, mother; but it's only a little headache," he protested, for
like all boys he disliked the thought of being considered sick.

Her eyes turned solicitously toward him many times during the meal,
for she saw that Jack was unusually dull, and took little part in the
conversation.

But it seemed that Karl made up for his brother's lack of energy, for he
was more than ordinarily inclined to be merry, and told numerous jokes he
had heard from his fellows in the boys' club he had joined.

Jack mentioned that they were about to organize a Boy Scout patrol; and
very naturally his mother looked a bit serious at this news, until he
explained some of the really excellent points connected with such an
association; when her face cleared at once.

"If that is what the movement means then the sooner a patrol is organized
in Stanhope the better. There are a lot of boys who would be vastly
benefitted by such uplifting resolutions," she declared, with some show
of enthusiasm.