“I declare if those two girls over there don’t make me think of Lucy Mainwaring and Sue Clifford away back in Hampton!” exclaimed Andy suddenly. “Oh! excuse me, Rob, I didn’t mean to give you a start by mentioning Lucy’s name. Of course it’s only a chance resemblance, for neither of the girls we’ve left behind us could be here at the Exposition. But I’m a great fellow, you remember, to imagine people look like some I’ve known.”
“Yes, and lots of times that failing has gotten you into a peck of trouble, too, Andy,” Rob remarked, laughingly; “there was that boy in scout uniform this very morning that you rushed up to with outstretched hand, and calling him Sim Jeffords. I nearly took a fit to see the blank look on your face when he drew himself up and gave you the cold stare.”
“Yes, that’s a fact, Rob, he did freeze me. Chances are to this minute that boy thinks I was a fraud, perhaps some new sort of confidence operator. I saw him grab at his watch-chain in a hurry. He backed away, too, and never gave me half a chance to explain.”
“I’m expecting right along,” Rob told him, “to have you discover some of our old enemies hovering around, and waiting for a chance to give us a jolt on account of the grudge they bear us. There’s Jared Applegate, for instance, the last we ever saw of him was at the time he was down in Mexico, having been compelled to run away from home after getting himself into a scrape by using some money that didn’t belong to him.”
Andy, instead of appearing dejected while Rob was “rubbing it into him” after this fashion, really seemed to enter into the joke himself.
“Well,” he went on to say with a snicker, “honest to goodness a little while ago I did see two fellows walking along who made me think of Max Ramsay and his pal, Hodge Berry, the two meanest boys of our home town. Gave me something of a thrill, too, and I even had a sneaking notion to run over and shake hands with them; though back home I would cross the street rather than meet them face to face.”
“Yes,” said Rob, “that’s always the case with people who’re away from home. They get so tired of seeing strange faces that the sight of one they know makes them friendly. But I suppose you’ve noticed that the scouts seem to have quite a share in the running of things at this Big Show?”
“For a fact I’ve seen quite a number of them about, and it strikes me they are a busy lot in the bargain,” Andy admitted.
“I understand they have a permanent camp on the grounds,” Rob explained, “which later on we must visit, and make acquaintances. They seem to be a hustling lot, and a credit to the khaki they wear.”
“But what d’ye suppose they’re doing here?” asked the other.