Jared did not linger a second longer than he could help. He gave each of the three scouts a look, and although he tried to appear grateful, they could see that there was the same old crafty gleam in his eyes as though deep down in his heart there existed not a trace of the desire to reform of which his lips had boasted. Passing through the open door, he vanished from their sight.
CHAPTER XX.
LOTS OF EXCITEMENT.
After all that excitement, Tubby could not immediately tear himself away from his chums.
“Why, seems as if all the sleep had been chased out of my eyes!” he declared, as he once more composedly sat down; and of course a general discussion took place in connection with their past experiences with Jared Applegate.
In the end they had to fairly pry Tubby away from that chair, and put him out of the door, in a friendly scuffle; he protesting to the last that as he had no expectation of getting a wink of sleep that night, there was no need of hurrying.
“Why, it’s half-past eleven right now,” Andy told him. “We’ll be a nice lot of blinking owls to-morrow unless we hit the hay in a hurry. You come back when you promised, and join the bunch. Good-night, Tubby!”
With that the door was closed, and of course the unwilling Tubby found there was no use trying to change the program; so he headed for the elevator, smothering a tremendous yawn by the way.
He made his appearance promptly on time when morning came, and they started for the Exposition grounds in a squad, all of them filled with lively anticipations of another great day of sight-seeing.
Of course the most anxious one of the company was Hiram. His business had not as yet come to a focus, and he was not at all certain how it might turn out. The others did not wish to hurry him unduly, for they knew Hiram to be very set in his ways; but at the same time they gave him plain hints that he would be unwise to wait too long.
“They’re expecting me any day now,” Hiram had explained in answer to these remonstrances, “and I’m just keepin’ ’em on the fence, you see. When I kinder guess the time’s ripe I’ll drop in on the company and tell ’em who I happen to be.”