Bob Dallow put a new phase on the affair. His twenty-four hours’ visit expanded and was encouraged to five days. The last afternoon of his stay, when Ben came home from school he was somewhat excitedly invited by his popular chum to accompany him to the garden.
“See her,” said Bob, “—or rather, listen.”
Bob placed the whistle between his lips. He began a tune, carried it through, and finished it with a flush of triumph.
“I declare!” exclaimed the delighted Ben, lost in admiration of his friend’s splendid efforts. “I never heard better music.”
Patience and practice had enabled Bob to become a master of the little device.
“It’s a big thing,” he insisted, “and if I were you I’d have it patented. I won’t say that anybody can play it—not everybody can play a cornet, either. You’ve got to cultivate what they call the horn lip to do that. You’ll find lots that can do it, though. I am one of them. ‘Home, Sweet Home’ with variations, listen.”
“Why, Bob,” exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, whom the boys found standing near by quite enraptured with the fine performance of her young guest.
Bob influenced Ben to make him a dozen of the little whistles. When he left the Hardys the next morning with many happy thanks for their kindness to him, his words to Ben were:
“I am going to make some money out of that whistle—see if I don’t.”
The prediction had somewhat faded out of Ben’s mind after the departure of their lively visitor. Bob wrote to him only once, telling him that he was enjoying life as a chauffeur for a liberal employer. For over two months, however, no word had come from the roving boy. As to the whistle, Ben had nearly forgotten about that. Now the subject came up to his mind in quite a forcible way on the public streets of Woodville.