“Well, boys, if you think you’ll not be home before lunch,” began Mrs. Hopkins, “perhaps you had better——”
“No, mother, thank you,” interrupted Jerry, anticipating what she was going to say. “We’ll stop and buy our dinner on the way. We have delayed too long as it is.”
“Oh, well, as long as we’re going to eat sometime, that’s all I want,” commented Bob, with a sigh of relief, as he took his seat again. Jerry climbed up, and assumed charge of the steering wheel, while Ned cranked up, and with a series of “chugs-chugs” the auto started off, the boys waving a farewell to Mrs. Hopkins.
“It seems like old times to be traveling this way, doesn’t it?” asked Ned, of Jerry, as they went swinging along the country road. “Maybe we’ll have to take our vacation in this, after all.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” was his chum’s opinion, as he suddenly steered to one side, to avoid running over an angry dog, who seemed to object to the progress of the car.
“That’s so, we were talking about where we would spend our vacation, when Andy came along with his news,” put in Bob, from the tonneau.
“Now, don’t start that dispute again,” begged Jerry. “We are going to have a rather strenuous time, if I’m any judge, before we get through with this search.”
“Oh, I wasn’t going to start any dispute,” remarked Bob quickly. “I was going to say that I’d leave it all to you, where we’ll go this summer. I don’t care, as long as we get the Comet back.”
“Me either,” added Ned. “I’ll leave it to Jerry.”
“Then what do you say that we fulfill the agreement, which Noddy seems falsely to have made with our hermit?” asked the tall lad.