“Read the letter, plague take you, Nick!” roared impatient George; “don’t you see you’re giving some of us heart disease right now, with your everlasting slow way of getting at things.”
So Nick, assuming a posture that, according to his mind signified the attitude of a victor awaiting the laurel wreath, began in his slow way.
“Dear Buster:
“As soon as I got your interesting letter I hit it up for the school house. Found old Crusty Bill Edwards hard at work, and had to bribe him to let me get in. Went up to the little room where we hold our club meetings. Yes, you were right, Buster; the register from the furnace in that room does back into the cloak room. Found both of ’em shut, but got old Bill to stand in the club room while I opened the registers, and then listened in the cloak closet while he talked to himself. And Buster, why, say, I could near hear the old man think, every sound came through that hole so plain. If you fellows talked about your plans that day you were there, and Clarence was hiding in the cloak room, make up your mind, old chap, he heard every word you said; In a hurry so I’ll ring off.
“Yours, Aleck.”
As Nick read the last word he paused and looked expectant. His motor-mates stared at one another as though for the moment rendered incapable of speech. The cleverness of the fat boy’s deduction was stunning; had it sprung from Jack, now, they might not have considered it so very wonderful; but to think that Buster, always so slow to grasp anything, could have done it, fairly staggered them.
Jack was the first to recover. Laughingly he dropped on one knee beside Nick, and seizing the fat hand of the victor he pretended to kiss it with due humility.
The others entered into the spirit of the occasion; and right there on the dock, regardless of the stares of passersby, the five clung around the grinning Buster, begging him to forgive their thick-headedness, and restore them to favor.
Nick of course, enjoyed the game most heartily, and laughed himself into a fit of choking, as he raised his chums, one by one, and tapped them on the head in token of his pardon.
“However did you come to think of it?” asked George, a little later, as they were once more aboard their boats, and ready to start forth in search of new adventures.
“I dreamed about it, and that’s the truth,” declared Nick, solemnly; nor could they ever get him to change his assertion. “Woke me right up in the middle of the night too. Thought I saw Clarence peekin’ through a hole, and laughing to beat the band; and then I saw the silly crowd in the next room. That gave me an idea, and started me to thinking. I believed I remembered that register, and had an idea there was another one just back of it opening into that cloak room. Now you don’t blame me for wanting to get that letter, do you?”
“I should say not,” declared George frankly. “Why you’ve just covered yourself with glory, Buster. After this, when anything mysterious happens, we’ll turn to you to guess the answer. You ought to be a lawyer, sure.”