"Jack," remarked Toby Hopkins just then, "I want to know what's happened to keep you chuckling to yourself right along. I never knew you to do such a thing except when you had something especially pleasant to communicate."
"Do you know," spoke up Steve, "I was just thinking the same thing, Toby. More than a few times I've seen Jack look around at the rest of us, and grin as if he felt almost tickled to death over something."
"Well, I am," calmly remarked the object of this attack.
"Then why don't you up and tell the whole bunch what's in the wind, Jack?" asked Joel. "It isn't fair to keep it to yourself hoggishly, is it, fellows?"
"We demand that you confess, Jack!" said Big Bob, sternly.
Jack beckoned to the fellows who were knocking the ball about.
"Come over here, all of you, and gather around me," he said, pretending to look very serious, but not making a great success of it. "I've got something to communicate that may please the bunch, for it concerns every one of us, as well as all other boys in Chester."
"Then it must be about the new gymnasium, Jack!" exclaimed Fred.
"Some one has given the project another boost," ventured Phil Parker. "I wonder now if your dad, Bob, has planked down more hundreds after what he's already donated. Is that it, Jack?"
"Mr. Jeffries has already done his whole duty in the matter, and proven his interest in Chester boys," said Jack. "There happens to be another gentleman in the town who up to date had a pretty poor opinion of boys in general, but who's had a change come over him, a revolutionary change, I should say, because he'd been in to see Mr. Holliday, asking for facts and figures, and then binding himself to stand for every dollar still needed to put the gymnasium on a firm footing, without going one cent in debt!"