It was an ideal day in late June, with bright sunshine and just sufficient breeze to make the air bracing. There had been a good attendance at the ball game, and now the surface of the lake was alive with all manner of craft carrying spectators to various points on the water front. There were canoes and rowboats, motor boats and steam yachts, as well as catboats and several small sloops. From the shore, where a road ran up and down the lake front, could be heard the sounds from numerous automobiles and motorcycles.
“I’ll bet the hole in a button against the hole in a doughnut that there won’t be much of a celebration at Longley to-night,” remarked Randy Rover, as the motor boat, under the guidance of Pud Hicks, one of the school employees, proceeded cautiously out from among the mass of craft near by.
“You’ll be able to cut the gloom with a knife,” answered his twin.
“And the gloomiest boy of the bunch will be Tommy Flanders,” put in Fred.
“I hope it takes some of the conceit out of him,” answered Jack. “I haven’t forgotten how he treated us when we were in camp up at Big Bear Lake,” he went on, referring to some happenings which have already been related in detail in another volume.
“I wonder if Tommy Flanders and his bunch will be at Longley next season,” mused Fred.
“I heard so,” returned Spouter Powell. “Tommy and his cronies didn’t pass some of the examinations last year, so they have got to hold over another term.”
“Gee! I hope we pass in our final examinations,” said Andy wistfully. “I’d hate awfully to flunk at the last minute, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t mention it, Andy!” returned his brother. “It’s enough to give a fellow the shivers.” The twins were given to so much fun and horseplay that it was next to impossible for them to buckle down to their studies, and, as a consequence, each successive examination became more or less of a nightmare to them.