“The worst I ever heard,” grunted Fred.
“Wish I had a gun,” remarked Mouser.
“It’s a mighty good one,” defended Billy. “But what’s the use in giving you fellows something to chew over. It’s like casting diamonds before swine.”
“You mean pearls,” corrected Mouser.
“Well, I may be mistaken about the diamonds,” Billy came back at them, “but I’m dead sure about the swine.”
The laugh that followed told Billy that he had made a hit, and he swelled up like a pouter pigeon.
“I’ve got another good one,” he volunteered, “a regular peach. Why is—”
But here the boys fell on Billy in a body and he was forced to hold his “peach” in reserve for another time.
Bobby by this time had finished all he had to do in the station, and the boys gathered up their recovered suit-cases and made a bee line for the trolley. A car was coming, not a block away, and they piled aboard almost before it had come to a stop with wild clatter and hubbub. But the motorman and conductor were used to the uproar and the pranks of the Rockledge boys, and what few other passengers there were smiled indulgently.
Rockledge was a lively little town with good stores and pleasant residence streets shaded by handsome oak trees. There were gas and electric lights, a number of churches and all the usual appurtenances of a bustling village that hoped some day to become a city. And not the least of the things in which the townspeople took pride was Rockledge School.