"Why, what have you fellows been doing, anyway?" he inquired. "You look as though you had had an argument with a steam roller."
"Yes, and the steam roller must have won," grinned Bob.
"You know well enough what happened to us," growled Buck Looker malignantly. "If ever you fellows come around our clubhouse again, we'll make you wish you hadn't."
"Clubhouse?" queried Joe innocently. "What does he mean, Bob?
I didn't know he and Lutz had a clubhouse."
"I mean that garage back of the Mooney's place," said Buck irately. "That's our clubhouse, and you fellows had better not try any rough house there again, or there'll be trouble."
"Oh, I know the place he means," said Bob, after making a pretence of puzzled thinking. "He means that tumbled-down shack where Mr. Mooney keeps his garden tools. I'm sure we'd never want to go near a place like that, would we, Joe?"
"Of course not," said Joe. "I wouldn't ask a respectable dog to go near that place."
Looker and Lutz had been growing angrier all the time during this dialogue, but after their recent experiences with the radio boys they did not quite dare resort to open hostilities. But if looks could have killed, Bob and Joe would have dropped dead on the spot.
"If you've got anything to say, now's the time to say it," said Bob, gazing steadily at the bullies with a look in his eyes that made them shift uneasily.
"We're in a big hurry, or we'd tend to you right now," blustered
Buck. "Come on, Carl. We'll fix them some other time."