Mr. Temple took out a business card and handed it to the other. Then he accompanied him to the door.
“Good-bye,” called the chums, in chorus. “Good luck.”
“Well,” said Bob, when his father returned, “that’s that. Now, Dad, you will want to attend to your business affairs today. What do you suggest we do?”
“Hire a car,” said his father, promptly, “and drive around the city. Be back here at five. Then we’ll dress and have dinner in one of the city’s famous restaurants. San Francisco is noted for its wonderful dining places. Afterward, we can all go to a theatre or just walk around and view the city at night.”
“Where to, first?” queried Frank. “I vote for the Cliff House and Seal Rocks. Here in the guide book it says ‘the seals play sportively in the restless tide.’ And Sutro Baths are nearby, too, I gather—the largest indoor salt water pool in the world.”
All three chums stood on the Market Street sidewalk before the Palace Hotel. The hour was near eleven. The usual early morning fog which had hung over the city, as it does practically every day of the year, had been dissipated for an hour or more. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sunshine brilliant. A brisk breeze blew along the tremendously wide thoroughfare, which is the widest of all the great city streets of the land, so wide, in fact, that it accommodates four street car lines with the width of an ordinary street left over on each side between the outer tracks and the curbs.
“How delightfully cool and exhilarating!” commented big Bob, drawing in and expelling great lungfuls of the crisp air. “I haven’t felt so peppy in days.”
“The guide book says that’s the San Francisco climate,” said Frank. “Cool, snappy days all the year round.”
“Your car, sir,” said a uniformed doorman to Jack.
They looked up to find a handsome limousine drawn to the curb. This was the car they had ordered for the day. The boys moved toward it.
“We ought to decide right now where we want to go,” declared Frank.
“I’ll tell you what, fellows,” he said. “Father gave me the name and address of a man who invented some new radio equipment, and advised me to look him up. Suppose we do that, first. Then we can go sightseeing. It just occurred to me. Wonder where that address is.”