"Enjoy ourselves—-with all the load of suspense hanging over our heads?" gasped Darrin.
"Well, we'll try it anyway."
To most people in and around Gridley the world, in these few days, seemed to bob along very much as usual. Dick and Dave, however, knew better.
At last came the evening of the sixteenth! Both anxious boys turned in early, though neither expected to sleep much. Both, however, were soon in the land of Nod.
But Dick awoke at half-past four on the morning of the fateful seventeenth. By five o'clock he knew that he wasn't going to sleep any more. So he got up and dressed.
Dave Darrin was in his bath, that same morning, before four o'clock. Then he, too, dressed, and wondered whether every other fellow who was going into the contest to-day felt as restless.
The mothers of both boys were astir almost as early. Mothers can't take these examinations, but mothers know what a son's suspense means.
Dick and Dave met at the station a full twenty minutes before train time.
CHAPTER XIX
Tom Reade Bosses the Job