“But we beat the roadster!” exclaimed Jerry. “That fellow didn’t know how to drive a car.”
“You’re right there. And, for a second or two, I thought you were going to make a mess of it,” said Ned, referring to an incident that had happened about a week previously when the boys, out on the road in their car, had accepted an impromptu challenge to race, with what might have been disastrous results.
“It was a narrow squeak,” admitted Jerry.
“And the nerve of that farmer, setting the constable after us!” cried Bob. “Just because we wouldn’t let him rob us of ten dollars to make up for a scratch one of his horses got from our mud guard.”
“I sometimes think we might have come out of it better if we had given the hayseeder his ten,” said Jerry, reflectively. “It cost us fifteen for the speed-fine as it was. We’d have saved five.”
“And is that what your father was asking about?” asked Bob.
“Words to that effect--yes,” replied Ned.
“It wasn’t in the paper,” reflected Jerry. “I looked all over for an account of it, but didn’t see any.”
“No, it wasn’t in the paper,” said Ned, “but dad hears of more things than I think he does, I guess.”
“We have been speeding it up a bit lately,” observed Jerry in a reflective tone.
“Just a little,” admitted Ned, with a half smile.
The three chums were clean-cut, healthy-looking lads, and it needed but a glance into their clear faces to tell one that whatever “speeding” they had been doing was in a literal sense only, and was not in the way of dissipation. They were fun-loving youths, and, like all such, the excitement of the moment sometimes got the better of them.
“And so you think the conference may have something to do with us; is that it, Ned?” asked Jerry, after a moment or two of silence.
“I have an idea that way--yes, from what dad said, and from what he wanted to know about our future plans. We’re mixed up in it somehow, that’s as sure as turkey and cranberry sauce.”
“That sounds like Chunky!” laughed Jerry.
“Well, what’s the idea?” demanded the stout youth. “I mean--what do you think will happen, Ned?”
“Well, you know we have been going a pretty lively gait lately, nothing wrong, of course, but a sort of butterfly existence, so to speak.”
“Butterfly is good!” exclaimed Jerry. “You’d think we were a trio of society girls.”