Tubby smiled, and looked pleased.
“It’s nice to know you’re appreciated, let me tell you, boys,” he observed. “I’ll be only too glad to join you at dinner. Yes, and in the morning I’ll pack my grip so as to change base. I can leave a letter for Uncle Mark that he’ll get as soon as he comes back from Oregon.”
So that much was settled, and somehow all of them seemed to feel pleased over the addition to their ranks. Tubby Hopkins was always like a breath of Spring and a welcome guest at every camp fire. Gloom and Tubby never agreed; in fact he radiated good cheer as the sun does light and heat.
“What’s the use of going to the city, and eating an ordinary dinner at some hotel or restaurant, when we can get such a corking fine spread at the place where we had our lunch?” asked Andy.
“Well, there’s a whole lot of sense in that,” admitted Rob. “We can sit around and get rested, then go to our dinner before the evening rush starts in; and by the time we’re through, the illumination of the Exposition will have gotten fully under way. And that’s a sight we’re wanting to see, you know.”
Hiram fell in with the idea at once, and Tubby declared it suited him perfectly. So once more they headed toward that section of the Zone where the giant Aëroscope lifted up its cage of sight-seers hundreds of feet every few minutes, for the eating-place had been close to this spot.
Since they were looking forward to several weeks at the Fair, no wonder the boys felt very satisfied and happy. There was so much to see that they believed they could put in all the time to advantage without duplicating anything.
When they were seated at the table, Tubby kept his chums in a constant roar of laughter by his many quaint remarks. Sometimes these were called forth by some queer type of foreigner chancing to pass by; and then again it might be Tubby would revive some ludicrous memory of past events in which he had figured.
They certainly seemed to enjoy their “feed,” as Tubby called it; it was not unlike a camp supper, when eaten under such odd surroundings. Andy openly declared that with so many swarthy turbaned Arabs strolling by, not to mention Egyptians, Hindoos, Algerians, Moors, and the like, he could easily imagine himself away off on a sandy desert, with camels as the only means of transportation.
“Makes me so thirsty just to think of it that I have to keep on drinking all the time; so please get me another cup of coffee, waiter,” he said.