CHAPTER V
Curing the Joker
Hard work in school occupied the attention of the boys for the rest of the week, for examination time was near, and even Jerry Gilroy was obliged to dismiss baseball from his mind in a frantic attempt to catch up with his geometry and Latin, that somehow appeared to keep perpetually ahead of him. Frank and Joe sweated over the ablative absolute and grumbled over the heroic exploits that could be resurrected from the deathless lines of Cæsar and Virgil if one could but distinguish verbs from nouns, and wondered, as schoolboys have wondered from time immemorial, why they should be obliged to concern themselves with things that happened two thousand years ago and more when they might better be outside playing.
When Friday night came they emerged from the haze of declensions and vocabularies, axioms and theorems, equations and symbols in which they had been engulfed all week and decided that Saturday should see them as far away from school as possible.
"Let's get out of the city altogether," suggested Frank, as the Hardy boys left the classroom on Friday afternoon. "What say we all go for a hike out into the country?"
"Suits me," agreed Chet. "No motorcycles either. Let's walk."
"Good idea," Jerry Gilroy approved. "Unless," he said hopefully, "you fellows would rather come up to the campus and have baseball practice."
"Another smart remark like that out of you and I'll practise my famous left hook on your jaw," warned Biff Hooper, squaring off in a pugilistic attitude. "We don't want to see or hear of this school again until Monday morning, and that'll be too soon."
"All right, all right," said Jerry placatingly. "I just thought I'd mention it."
"And I just think you'll forget about it," said Chet. "You'll come along on this hike with us. Here, have an apple and keep quiet."