A small lad was approaching the two friends on the run, and, as he neared them, he called out: 

“Hello, Morse!  Say, Tom Fairfield, when did you get in?  Did you have a good time?  I hear you went camping and discovered a hidden treasure.  Did it amount to much?  How much did you get?  Where’s Jack and Bert?  Are you going in for football?  Where are you rooming?”

Tom and Morse came to a stop.  They eyed each other solemnly.  Then Tom said gravely: 

“Isn’t it a shame; and he’s so young, too!”

“Yes,” assented Morse with a mournful shake of his head.  “I understand that his case is hopeless.  They are going to provide a keeper for him.”

“Say, look here, you fellows!” exclaimed the small lad.  “What’s eating you, anyhow?  What do you mean by that line of talk?”

“Oh, he heard us!” gasped Tom, in pretended confusion.  “I didn’t think he had any rational moments.  But he has.  There, Georgie,” he went on soothingly.  “Go lie down in the shade, and you’ll be all right in a little while.  Do you suffer much?”

“Say, what’s the joke?” demanded George Abbot, the small lad referred to.  “Can’t I ask you a question, without being insulted and called crazy?”

“Sure you can, Why,” replied Tom, giving the lad the nick-name bestowed on him because of his many interrogations.  “Of course you can ask one question, or even two, but you can’t fire broadsides at us in that fashion.  Remember that we have weak hearts.”

“And our constitutions are not strong,” added Morse.

“Oh, you be hanged!” murmured George.  “If you can’t—­”

“Oh, come along!” invited Tom, catching him by the arm.  “We’re going to town.  It’s Morse’s treat.  Yes, George, I did have a bang-up time on my vacation.  I’ll tell you all about it later.”

The three were soon on a trolley car and, a little later, they had reached the town, heading for a drug store where ice cream sodas were a specialty.

“It goes to the right spot!” exclaimed Tom gratefully, as he finished what was set before him.  “What do you say to a moving picture show?  It will pass the time until the last train gets in.  Then for some fun to-night, if Jack and Bert show up.”

The others were willing, and soon, in company with some other Elmwood Hall students whom they met, the boys went to the place of the moving pictures.

“Well, it’s almost time for the choo-choo cars to sand-paper in,” remarked Tom a little later, looking at his watch as he and Morse paced the depot platform.

“Yes, there she blows,” remarked his companion, as a distant whistle sounded.

“There they are!”

“There’s Tom!”

“Hello, you old skate!”

“You got here ahead of us!”

“And there’s Morse Denton!”

“’Rah for Elmwood Hall!”

“I see Joe Rooney.”

“Yes, and there’s Lew Bentfield.”