“It doesn’t take much to make you hungry,” commented Jerry. “But we might as well eat here as to go on to Wallace’s. That would take half an hour.”
“Yes, let’s eat here,” acquiesced Chunky, and Ned assenting, that plan was agreed upon.
“Mr. Hobson? Oh, yes, I know him,” the garage man said when the story of the wrecked car had been told. “He often passes through here. Just leave it to me. I’ll go out and get his machine, tow it in and fix it up. I know the place all right. That sure is a bad turn. I guess he never had been on that road before. But I’ll get his car right away.”
“Then we can eat,” said Bob, with a sigh of relief.
While the three boys were making for a restaurant, there was taking place back in Jerry’s home the family conference, the knowledge of which had, in a measure, rather disturbed the three chums. For though they knew that it was going on, they could only guess at the object, which seemed to be rather important.
And, in a sense, it was.
That morning Mr. Aaron Slade, the head of the largest department store in Cresville, a town not far from Boston, had called on Mr. Andrew Baker, the banker.
“Andrew,” Mr. Slade had said (for he and the banker were old friends), “what are we going to do with our boys?”
“That’s just the question which has been puzzling me,” said Mr. Baker.