"Sure you do!" he drawled. "Didn't I supply the brains to our combine?"
"Brains!" repeated Dot. "Where did you get 'em? I'll have to have you arrested for stealing 'em, if that's the case! But here—take your box!"
"Couldn't possibly," he said, waving them aside with his cigarette holder. "Besides, I hardly ever play golf. Too fatiguing."
"How about your school-girl figure?" asked Maurice. "Aren't you afraid if you don't exercise, you'll lose it?"
Everybody, even Linda, laughed, for Jim Valier was about the world's thinnest youth.
"He's really afraid somebody will mistake him for a golf-stick, and bang a ball with him," remarked Ralph.
In groups, and some in pairs, the whole crowd went back to the lake. After all that exercise and excitement, everybody wanted another dip to cool off. It was six o'clock by the time they all piled into their cars, and half-past when Linda reached home.
Hoping to find her father, as she had been hoping every day that week, she dashed up the steps quickly, merely waving good-by to her companions as the sports car shot from the driveway. And then, miraculously, she saw his beloved face at the door!
"Daddy!" she cried rapturously, rushing breathlessly into his arms.