“Wait,” cried Harry. “I’m secretary! I’ll make a list of the subscriptions.” She started to work on the pad she carried, and the others waited patiently while she frowned and labored. Presently, “There!” she said. “Now listen:
Dick $50.00 Roy 5.00 Chub 5.00 Harry 5.00 Lemuel Fish 500.00 Charles A. Bliss 50.00 J. L. Hughes 5.00 ------ Total $620.00 Printing, etc. 4.30 ------ Amount on hand $615.70”
“Well,” said Chub, “that’s something, even if it is a long way from thirty thousand.”
“And there are eleven people still to hear from,” said Harry hopefully.
“The one I wanted most to get a reply from,” said Dick, “hasn’t written yet. I hope he will.”
“What? The banker? Why, he’s worth millions!”
“That’s why I hope he’ll answer us,” said Dick dryly.
“Do you mean that he went to school here?” asked Chub incredulously. Dick nodded.
“He was here for two years just after the school started, about twenty-three years ago. I don’t think he graduated, though. But that wouldn’t make any difference if he wanted to give us some money. He gives lots, you know. Only last fall he gave a small fortune to some little old college in Pennsylvania that no one ever heard of before.”
“I wish you’d registered that letter,” said Chub thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t want it to miss him.”
“Seems to me it’s time he wrote, if he’s going to,” said Roy.
“Oh, men like Kearney are pretty busy, I guess,” said Dick. “There’s plenty of time yet. I was rather hoping that he’d give a good big sum, say ten or twenty thousand. If we could get some one to give that much I’ll bet we wouldn’t have much trouble raising the rest.”
“I love the way Dick talks about ten or twenty thousand as though it was fifty cents,” sighed Chub. “Why, if I saw twenty thousand dollars coming along on the other side of the street, I’d be so scared I’d run up an alley! But Dick--why, Dickums would just smile and walk across and slap it on the back!”
“I think,” said Harry seriously, “that we’ve done awfully well. Why, just think, when we began we didn’t have a cent! And now we’ve got over six hundred dollars!”
“By the way, where are you keeping it, Harry?” asked Roy.
“Hold on! Don’t tell!” Chub cried. “He wants to swipe this, too!”
“Say, shut up about that, will you?” growled Roy. “I don’t mind a joke, but you’re wearing it out, you know.”