“What’s that?”
“Fifty running-fifty walking. Try it and you’ll use no other. Come on!
The kind of pace you’ve always wanted,” said Roy, jogging along.
“Beware of substitutes.”
It was just about the time when Roy was showing Tom his camp that a big touring car rolled silently up to the outer gate of the Bennett place. (The house stood well back from the road.) The car was crowded with young people of both sexes, and it was evident from their expressions of surprise and disappointment that they saw the yellow sign on the gate.
There were a few moments of debate; some one suggested tooting the horn, but another thought that might disturb the patient; one proposed going to the house door and inquiring, while still another thought it would be wiser not to. Some one said something about ’phoning in the morning; a girl remarked that the last time she saw Connover he had a headache and looked pale, and indeed Connover’s general weakness, together with the epidemic which prevailed in Bridgeboro, made the appearance of the sign perfectly plausible.
The upshot was that the auto rolled away and turned into the Hillside Turnpike. Scarcely had it gone out of sight when a patch of light flickered across the lawn, the shade was drawn from a window and the figure of Mrs. Bennett appeared peering out anxiously.
Ten minutes out of Bridgeboro, as the big car silently rolled upon the Hillside Turnpike, one of its disappointed occupants (a girl) called,
“Oh, see the searchlight!”
“Oh, look,” said another.
The long, misty column was swinging across the heavens.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” laughed one of the fellows, as Tom’s utterance of “Dot,” sent a sudden shaft of light into the sky and out again as quickly.