By lunch time the boys had resigned themselves to the weather, and with the aid of the telephone had succeeded in interesting Gizzard and Cottontop in the "gym" that had sprung into being in the upper story of the barn.
The earlier part of the afternoon was spent by the four boys in improving the equipment of the gym and in demonstrating their abilities as death-defying athletes. It was the performance by Sube of a feat called the "muscle-grinder or Hindu punishment" that really started the trouble, for it threw him into a state of perspiration which caused him to remark that he would enjoy taking a swim.
"I guess you wouldn't find the water pretty cold!" suggested the practical Gizzard. "Oh, no!"
"But s'posin' we had it fixed so's it would be warm! S'posin' we had a little shack built right over the swimmin'-hole!"
"Water'd be cold jus' samee!"
"But I can s'pose it would be warm, can't I? I can s'pose anything, can't I? I can s'pose boilin' ice-water if I want to, can't I?"
"You can s'pose it," admitted Gizzard grudgingly, "but that won't make it so. Who'd want boilin' ice-water, anyway?"
"But jus' s'posin' we had a place fixed like that," continued Sube quite unperturbed. "I'd take a swim every day in the year. And when I'm a man I'm goin' to have a swimmin'-hole made right in my own house, and then I can go in whenever I want to!"
"You'd oughta be a Baptis'," suggested Gizzard.
"What's bein' a Baptis' got to do with goin' in swimmin'?" asked Sube cautiously.