“You ate enough at Mrs. Wilson’s to last for a week, I should think,” said Bobby.
“I notice that you weren’t very far behind,” retorted Pee Wee.
They trooped into the doctor’s office and found him busy with some papers, which he laid aside at once, however, as he stood up to greet them.
He was a tall, spare man, with a clean-cut face and kindly eyes that usually had a humorous twinkle in them, although they could flash fire if he caught any of the boys doing a mean or tricky thing. He smiled cordially and shook hands with them all.
“You’re a little later than you expected to be, aren’t you?” he asked. “I was looking for you on an earlier train.”
“We’ve had a hard time getting here,” smiled Bobby, and in a few words he told of the stirring adventures through which the little party had gone that day. The doctor listened intently, surprise, indignation and sympathy in his eyes.
“It was an outrage!” he exclaimed, when Bobby had finished, “and I will get in touch with Mr. Stone at once and lend him any aid I can in catching the thieves. But I am very glad and thankful that it was only a loss of money and property. Those rascals might have used personal violence. I’ll telephone to-morrow to a number of different towns, giving a description of the tramps and urging the authorities to be on the look-out for them. The sooner such fellows are put in jail the better.”
He made notes of as many points about the robbers as the boys could remember, especially of the scar of one man and the limp of the other. As to the third man, the boys were somewhat hazy. He was just “plain tramp.”
“And now,” said the doctor, his eyes twinkling, “I suppose there’s no need of asking you boys whether you are hungry.”
There was an eager assent on the part of the other boys and a heart-felt groan from Pee Wee.