"I mean some trick."
"How can you tell?"
"Why, Jack"s so anxious to get us off. He paid the hotel bill for me, bought me a magazine and some candy. He never does things like that unless there is something queer about to happen. Does anything seem wrong? Do I look all right?"
"Perfectly charming, Cora. That"s a stunning sweater you have."
"Yes, I like it. Then it can"t be me that he"s going to bother. I wish I could tell what it was." She looked back to where Jack, with hurried politeness, was helping Belle into her car. He did not want her to have a glimpse at the rear of it.
"Well, we"ll see what develops," spoke Cora, as she slipped in first speed, and prepared to set the clutch. She gave a last look back. The little cavalcade of autos was all ready to start. That of Norton, with Walter at the wheel, and Bess on the seat beside him, was directly behind Cora"s big maroon beauty, then came the machine of the twins and lastly that of Jack.
"Let her go!" shouted Jack.
Cora"s machine shot forward. Norton"s jumped as Walter let in the clutch.
Then Jack, with a quick motion, pulled from the back of the Robinson car, that Norton was driving, a strip of white muslin. It left revealed another, containing the words:
ON THEIR HONEYMOON
"Let "em have it!" cried Jack.
Instantly the urchins with the paper bags opened them and a shower of rice fell over Norton and Belle, being scattered liberally over Mrs. Fordam.
"Mercy!" cried the chaperone. "What is this? Stop it at once!" she ordered to the boys, but laughingly they persisted.
"Good luck!" cried the street lads.
"Hurray!"
"Send us a piece of wedding cake!"
Cora, turning, seeing the showers of rice and hearing the calls, guessed what had happened.
"This was Jack"s trick!" she exclaimed. "He"s given the impression that this is a big wedding party. Oh, wait until I get a chance to retaliate.
Hurry up!" she cried back to Norton, who was grinning cheerfully, and trying to summon a blush to his cheeks to make him fit the part of the bashful bridegroom.
Walter shot Norton"s car ahead, and Norton guided that containing the placard out into the middle of the street. There the words were more plainly seen, and good-natured laughter came from the throng, who thought they understood the situation. The rice continued to fall, for the boys had bought liberally of it, and had bribed the street urchins to throw it.
"This is terrible!" exclaimed Bess, in the car with Walter, seeing what had happened.
"It"s only a joke," he said. "But I was afraid you girls wouldn"t like it."
"Like it? I should say not. I"m going to take that sign off our car at once."
She made a motion as though to alight from the moving auto, but Walter detained her.
"We"ll take it off when we get around the corner," he promised.
"What does this mean?" demanded Belle, rather indignantly, of Norton.
"I guess they take this for a wedding procession," he replied.
"And who are----"
She stopped suddenly.
"I see!" she exclaimed, as the meaning of the rice came to her. "Well, I don"t think this a bit nice. I"d rather have my sister back here with me,"
she went on coldly. "Mrs. Fordam, is there anything on our car--any of those silly white satin ribbons, or----"
"Old shoes?" suggested Norton, rather abashed at the way his joke had been received.
The chaperone looked over the rear of the tonneau.
"There"s a strip of cloth on here, with some letters on it," she answered, "but I can"t read it upside down without my gla.s.ses. Surely----"
She hesitated for a moment, and then cried:
"The rice! Oh, I see! Boys, you shouldn"t have done it!" but she laughed nevertheless, and Norton felt more relieved.
"It was only in fun," he protested.
"A boy"s idea of fun, and a girl"s, often differ exceedingly," spoke Mrs.
Fordam. "I really think it had better be taken off."
The crowd had been following along the sidewalk, tossing rice and showering congratulations on those in the "bridal-car." Norton saw that Mrs. Fordam meant what she said. So he stopped the machine and got out to remove the placard, just as Cora was about to turn around to learn more of the cause of the merriment. Norton ripped off the lettered muslin and tossed it aside.
"It may do for someone else to play a joke with," he remarked. "I guess I got myself in bad here. I"ll have to make up for it."
"There, you needn"t get out--Norton is fixing it," said Bess to Walter.
"But I think I"ll ride in my own car, if you don"t mind," and she prepared to get out as he put on the brakes.
"Not mad; are you?" he asked, and there was a note of anxiety in his voice.
"No, not exactly," she replied with a smile.
Cora, who had made the turn, and had learned what had happened, said nothing. She looked at Jack rather reprovingly, however. Then, the crowd seeing no more chance for fun, began to drop back. The autos went on, the twins in their own, and Walter back with Norton, while Jack and Ed rode together, Cora being with Eline up ahead--a pacemaker.
There was a little coldness among the girls and boys--on the side of the girls--when they stopped for dinner at a country hotel. Nothing of moment had occurred on the road, save that Cora got a puncture, and Jack and the other boys had no little difficulty in getting off an old shoe that had not been removed in some time.
A little later something went wrong with the carbureter on the car of the twins. The boys took turns trying to adjust it, as they were far from a garage. It was Norton who discovered the trouble--a simple enough matter--and remedied it.
"Doesn"t that ent.i.tle me to a rebate of punishment?" he asked of Belle.
"I"ll see," she answered, but her glance was not as stern as it had been, and she ventured to smile a little.
With the offending placard removed, the cars proceeded onward again. They had planned to take the trip leisurely, and to stop over night at another hotel. The day following that would bring them to Sandy Point Cove in good time to settle the bungalows before dark.
"We"re going to the theatre to-night," Jack announced, shortly after the arrival in Duncan, where they were to spend the night. He had gone out after reaching the hotel, and purchased the seats for a popular comedy then running.
"Oh, are we?" asked Cora with a lifting of her eyebrows, a signal, that had Jack but known it, meant more than he suspected. "That"s awfully nice of you, really."