Dusk was just settling when they reached the hotel, and the clerk and those in the lobby looked up in surprise as the students rushed across the tiled floor toward the desk.
“Some of that hazing business,” ventured a drummer, as he got out of the way of the rush.
The clerk evidently thought the same thing, and was about to call for the hotel detective and a porter or two (for sometimes the Boxwood lads went in for rather strenuous times), when Ned, noting the looks cast toward them and realizing that their actions were being misconstrued, called out to the clerk before they reached the desk:
“What room is Mr. Slade in?”
“And Mr. Baker, too?” added Bob.
“Oh!” There was distinct relief in the clerk’s voice. “Are you the boys the gentlemen are expecting? Well, you’re to go right up. Front!” he called, and struck a bell which brought a diminutive boy, with two rows of brass buttons down his jacket front, up to the desk on a slide.
“Show these gentlemen up to Number Nineteen,” said the clerk, with a wave of his hand.
“Dis way!” drawled the hotel Mercury, and the three boys followed.
Ned and Bob were, naturally, worried about the physical condition of their fathers, and Jerry was anxious to know what it all meant—Mr. Slade and Mr. Baker coming back unexpectedly from their important business trip to visit their sons at Boxwood Hall.
“Why wouldn’t a letter or a telegram have answered?” Jerry wondered, and Bob and Ned would have wondered also only they were worried lest the accident might have been more serious than the professor had admitted.