"These new clothes were bought with money from the treasury,"
Reade informed her.
"Does our appearance suit you, ladies?" Greg asked smiling.
"You look like so many tailor's models," replied Belle Meade, adding, sweetly: "If that is any praise."
Certainly Dick & Co., clad in well-fitting white duck suits, presented a creditable appearance.
"We've been preparing our friends at the Terraces for a different looking lot of young men," laughed Susie. "We have told them that a number of high school boy friends of ours were coming over to dinner and the hop attired in the same clothes they have been wearing in camp and on the road. Now we must apologize to them for presenting fashion plates."
The explanation, as Dick presently furnished it to Laura Bentley, was a simple one. Dick had been handling the funds of the six boys on this expedition, which had held out much longer than any of his chums had known. At the time of accepting the invitation young Prescott had felt sure that an Ashbury clothier would be able to furnish proper clothes for his party, and his guess had proved a correct one. Moreover, the treasury of Dick & Co. had been easily able to endure the drain, for these white clothes had not been costly.
Mrs. Bentley presently joined the little Gridley group of young people on the veranda. That good lady noted, with secret pleasure, the well-groomed appearance of her young guests.
"Rah, rah, rah!" came boisterously up the veranda, as the camp visitors of the evening before suddenly appeared. "Rah, rah, rah!"
Then, halting in a compact group midway on the veranda, they shouted in chorus:
"S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S! Saunders! Saunders! Siss-boom-a-a-ah! Rah, rah, rah!"