“Takes the Speedwells to hatch up this ‘new thought’ stuff,” whooped Jim Stetson. “What d’ye say, boys? Tell it!”
“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!
Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
The yell from the crowd made everybody in the snowy square turn to look; but when they saw the crowd of boys from the academy the spectators merely smiled. Boyish enthusiasm in Riverdale frequently “spilled over,” and nobody but Josiah Somes, the constable, minded it—and he considered it better to give the matter none of his official attention.
“Meeting to-night, fellows, in the Boat Club house—don’t forget!” shouted one of the bigger boys. “We’ll give this iceboat scheme the once over.”
“It’s a great idea,” declared Wiley Moyle, enthusiastically. “And they tell me the river above Long Bridge is already solid as a brick pavement.”
“It isn’t so solid below the bridge—or it wasn’t this morning,” chuckled Billy Speedwell. “Mr. Spink can tell us all about that.”
But Barrington Spink was hurrying rapidly away.
“Why, if the Speedwells have all the money Wiley says they have, they’re worth cultivating,” he muttered to himself—which is one of the mysteries that bothered Dan and Billy during the next few days. They wondered much why Spink’s manner should so change toward them. The boy hung about them and tried to make friends with “the milkmen” in every possible way.
The other—and more important mystery—met Dan and Billy when they arrived home that very afternoon. The strange boy that Billy had knocked down the evening before, had disappeared.