"Here comes J. P. Whittington, Junior, Esquire, in his new Norman! Some speed—what?"
The three Graffam Academy seniors, Jim Spurling, Roger Lane, and Winthrop Stevens, who were sitting on the low, wooden fence before the campus, earnestly discussing the one thing that had engrossed their minds for the past two weeks, stopped talking and leaned forward.
On the broad, elm-lined street beyond the Mall suddenly appeared a cloud of dust, out of which shot a gray automobile. Its high speed soon brought it to the academy grounds, and it came to an abrupt stop before the fence.
"Pile in, fellows!" shouted the driver, a bareheaded youth in white flannels, "and I'll take you on a little spin."
He was a slim, sallow lad of seventeen, with a straw-colored pompadour crowning his freckled forehead. The sleeves of his outing shirt were rolled up above his elbows, revealing his bony, sunburnt arms. He wore a gay red tie, and a tennis blazer, striped black and white, lay on the seat beside him.
"No, thanks, Percy," replied Lane. "Sorry we can't go; but we're too busy."
Spurling and Stevens nodded as Whittington's light-blue eyes traveled inquiringly from one to the other.
"Ah, come on!" he invited. "Be sports! Let's celebrate the end of the course. Just to show how good I feel, I'm going to scorch a three-mile hole through the atmosphere between here and Mount Barlow faster than it was ever done before. Tumble aboard and help hold this barouche down on the pike while I burn the top off it for the last time."
Pulling out a book of tissue wrappers and a sack of tobacco, he began to roll a cigarette with twitching, yellowed fingers.
"Anybody got a match? No? Then I'll have to dig one up myself."