“About ten miles from here. Keep straight on and you can’t miss it. It’s a big place—old-fashioned white farmhouse, red barns, and all that. Just the thing for movies, I reckon.”
“Thank you, I’ll go there,” said Mr. Martin, and when he rejoined his family he said to his wife:
“This Portnay actor keeps me on the jump. I wish he’d stay in one place long enough for me to get back those albums.”
“You’ll very likely catch him at the farm,” said Mrs. Martin. “But perhaps it would be as well to telephone from here and say you are coming.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” the Curlytops’ father said.
He went back into the post-office, where he had noticed a telephone on the wall. But when he asked if he could use it to send a message to the Dawson Farm the postmaster smiled and said:
“Well, you’re welcome to use it as far as I’m concerned, but you can’t get Dawson’s Farm on that machine.”
“Haven’t they a telephone?” Mr. Martin wanted to know.
“Oh, yes, they have a ’phone. But this one here is out of order and it won’t work. I’ve sent for a feller to fix it, but he hasn’t come.”
“Is there another telephone here?” asked Mr. Martin.