"How are you, boys?" asked a pleasant voice, and the lads looked up to see Dr. Amory Dale, the pastor of the "Old First Church" of Clintonia, standing beside them.
Most of them responded cordially, for they liked and respected him. There was no stiffness or professionalism about him to make them feel that they were being held at a distance. He was comparatively young, somewhere in the early thirties, and had the frame and bearing of an athlete. There were rumors that he had been a star pitcher on his college baseball nine and a quarterback on a football eleven whose exploits were still cherished in the memory of his institution. He was a lover of the out-of-doors and there was a breeziness and vitality that radiated from him and made him welcome wherever he went. He kept in touch with modern science, and it was said that he would have embraced a scientific career if he had not felt it his duty to enter the pulpit.
"You boys seem to have had a strenuous time of it," he said, as he looked with an amused smile at the torn and soiled clothes of Bob and Joe as well as the scratches and blisters that marked them. "I hear that you covered yourself with glory. Tell me more about it."
They went into all the details they knew, passing over as rapidly as possible their own part in the affair, and Dr. Dale listened attentively.
"Good work," he commented. "The occasion came and you were equal to it, and that's all that can be asked of anybody. I think I'll step over to the Sterling House now and see if I can be of any help to the poor girl who has had such a trying experience. By the way, boys, I hope you won't forget about that wireless talk up at my house to-night. I'm looking for you all to come if possible, and I'll do my best to see that you have a good time."
"We're sure of that," replied Bob, with a smile. "And we haven't been thinking of much else since you first asked us to come. In fact, we were talking about it just before the accident."
"That's good," replied the doctor. "You coming too, Buckley?" he asked, turning to Buck, who with his cronies was standing grouchily a little apart from the others.
Buck stammered something which could be hardly understood, but which was interpreted by the doctor as a negative. The minister did not press the matter, but with a pleasant wave of the hand that included them all he went across the street.
"He's a brick, isn't he?" remarked Bob, as he looked after him.
"You bet he is," agreed Joe emphatically.