“Golf, for instance,” grinned Rattleton. “They say tennis won’t be in it at Bar Harbor this summer. Golf is bound to be all the rage.”
“Let it rage. It’s better than tennis in some respects, but there is not quite enough excitement about it for the average American lad. Baseball and football are the things to make the blood tingle.”
“You bet!” cried several of the boys in chorus.
“If my plan is adopted,” said Frank, “we can travel back East by easy stages, stopping wherever we hear there is anything going on in which we are interested, and getting into all sorts of sports and games. How does it strike you, fellows?”
“Pully,” shouted Hans. “Uf I peen aple to get me some footraces indo, I pet you your life I vos goin’ to make der natifs hustle.”
The Dutch boy’s one pet hallucination was that he was a great sprinter. He cherished the delusion with tender fondness, and nothing could convince him it was a delusion.
“Begorra it’s a great skame, Frankie,” cried Barney. “It’s a roight jolly ould toime we’ll hiv.”
“Gol darned ef we won’t,” nodded Ephraim, bobbing his head up and down with his long supple neck.
The others, with the exception of Jack and Bruce, expressed themselves as greatly pleased with the idea. Browning grunted and groaned:
“Merry, you’re always getting up something to make a fellow work. Now our trip across the continent is over, I have been contemplating the joys of a lazy trip back home in a parlor car. Here you come with a scheme that knocks the wind out of my sails.”