"Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out," complained the boy, but grinning, too.
"You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own club-room—now, would you?"
"Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's father's barn one't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged cookstove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry."
"Oh, I mean a real nice place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place to smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real reading-room, with books, and papers, and games, and all that."
"Oh, that would be fine! But where'd we get that kind of a place in Poketown?" queried Marty.
That was the start of it.
There was an empty store on High Street next to the drug store. It was a big room which could be easily heated by a pot stove and a few lengths of stovepipe. It was owned by the drug-store man, and had been empty a long time. He asked six dollars a month rent for it.
It was just about this time that Janice learned she possessed powers of persuasive eloquence. The druggist was the first person she "tackled" in her campaign.
"It's a secret, Mr. Massey," she told him; "but some of the boys want a reading-room, and some of the rest of us are anxious to help them get it. Only it mustn't be talked of at first, or it will be all spoiled. You know how 'fraid boys are that there is going to be a trap set for them."
"Ain't that so?" chuckled the druggist.