Andy sprang up, cracked his heels together, and gave a shout.
“You’re right, Frank; it was Monday!” he cried.
“Say, what’s all this row about?” demanded Elephant, looking puzzled. “I don’t see what difference it makes whether it was Friday or Monday, so long as the little wizard wrench is lost, dead sure.”
“Why, you slow coach!” cried Andy, “don’t you understand that if I sure had it right here in the shop on Monday it never could have been lost on Saturday. So both you and Larry guessed off the hook. It didn’t drop from my pocket into that blessed old muck hole.”
“And then the old eagle couldn’t have lifted it either!” observed Elephant, with a look of disappointment on his face, as he saw the one bright idea of his life vanishing in smoke.
“And if I had it here it ought to be around somewhere!” observed Andy; whereupon he started overturning everything that chanced to be lying on table or floor, until Frank begged him to desist or else they would find themselves in a peck of trouble regarding other things that could not be found.
“But hope has revived, anyhow,” asserted Andy, doggedly, “and I’m never going to give over the hunt. That invaluable little tool has just got to be found. And I’m the Peary that will get there sooner or later.”
“All right,” said Frank; “but I can see Larry coming whooping along the road out yonder on his wheel, and he looks as if he had something to tell us. Yes, whenever Larry grins like that all over his face he is bursting with information. So get ready to be surprised, fellows.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE NEWS LARRY BROUGHT.
“Don’t you take too much stock in Larry bringing news,” observed Andy, still letting his eyes rove all around the walls of the shed, as though striving to discover somewhere the object of his dearest wish.