"Good enough!" exclaimed the others. "Where did you hear about it, Jimmy?"
asked Bob.
"There was a bill poster putting up the programme on a fence as I came along," answered Jimmy. "I saw the name "Cha.s.son," and of course I stopped and looked to see if Larry and Tim were on the bill."
"Were they?" asked Herb.
"You bet they were! And in pretty big type, too," responded Jimmy. "Say!
it will be great to see them on the stage, won"t it?"
"I should say it will," said Joe. "If they"re half as funny on the stage as they are off it, they"ll surely make a hit."
"They certainly will," put in Bob. "We"ll be there on the opening night to give them a hand. If they don"t go big, it won"t be our fault."
"They"ll be popular, all right," predicted Joe, with conviction. "If the rest of the show is half as good as their part it will be worth more than the price of admission."
"It will be great to hear that canary whistling his little tunes again,"
said Herbert, laughing at the recollection of Larry"s comical imitations.
"Not to mention Tim"s dancing," said Bob. "That boy can sure shake a foot.
I"ll bet they"ll both get into the big circuits before they"re much older."
"They deserve to," said Jimmy. "They rehea.r.s.e an awful lot. It makes me tired just to think of how hard I"ve seen them work sometimes."
"But then, you get tired very easily, Doughnuts, you know that," said Joe.
"If you worked half as hard in the afternoons as I do sometimes, you"d be tired in the evening, too," replied Jimmy, in an injured tone. "I"ll bet I sawed through about a thousand feet of tough oak planking this afternoon for Dad, and I"ll have to do the same thing to-morrow afternoon. He"s got a big job on, and I have to pitch in and help him."
"Well, you ought to do something to pay for all the good grub you pack away," said Herb, utterly without sympathy for his friend"s tale of woe.
"Maybe you"d pack away more if you did a little work once in a while,"
retorted Jimmy. "All you do is spend your time thinking up poor jokes instead of doing something useful."
"Oh, I"m glad you mentioned jokes," said Herb, calmly ignoring Jimmy"s attack. "I thought of a swell one just as I was walking up here this evening. I know you will all be delighted to hear it."
"What makes you so sure?" asked Bob. "They don"t usually delight anybody, do they?"
"Of course they do," replied Herb, indignantly.
"They always delight Herb Fennington, anyway," observed Joe.
"Yes, I like me," said Herb, refusing to get mad. "Also, I like my jokes.
Now, take this one, for instance. Why----"
"I"d rather not take it, if it"s all the same to you," said Joe, cruelly.
"Why don"t you keep it, and give it to somebody else, Herb?"
"Oh, forget it!" exclaimed Herb. "This is a good joke, I tell you, and you"ve got to listen, whether you want to or not."
"Go ahead and get the agony over with, then," said Bob, resignedly. "I suppose we"ll be able to live through it, just as we have others before this."
"Well, I saw in this morning"s newspaper that the Mercury Athletic Club in New York burned up last night. Now, you"ve got to help me out with this joke, Bob. When I say "I see there was a big athletic event at the Mercury Athletic Club last night," you say "is that so? What happened?" Have you got that through your noddle?"
"Yes, I guess I can remember that," answered Bob. "Shoot!"
"All right, then, here goes," said Herb. "I see that there was a big athletic event at the Mercury Athletic Club last night, Bob."
"Is that so?" said Bob, taking his cue. "What happened, Herb?"
"The water was running and the flames were leaping," cried Herb, triumphantly. "How"s that for a crackerjack joke?"
"Awful," said Joe, although he could not help laughing with the others.
"I"ll bet there"s a nice cosy, padded cell waiting for you in the nearest bughouse, Herb."
"Well, it can wait, for all of me," said his friend. "I"m not very keen about it, myself."
"I think jail would be a better place for him," suggested Jimmy.
This met with the unqualified approval of everybody except Herb, and then the boys set to work on their new radio set. As this was Sat.u.r.day evening, they had no lessons to prepare, and they worked steadily until ten o"clock. They wound transformers until Jimmy declared that it made him dizzy even to look at them, and when the time came to stop work they all felt that substantial progress had been made.
They agreed to meet at the theater the following Monday evening, to witness the opening performance of the show in which their friends Larry Bartlett and Tim Barcommon were performing, and then said good-night and started homeward to the accompaniment of a cheerful whistled marching tune.
There was much excitement among their cla.s.smates the following Monday, as they had all heard about the show and most of them intended to go. When they learned that the radio boys were acquainted with two of the performers, the four lads were deluged with questions as to how they came to know them.
"You fellows are getting pretty sporty, seems to me," said Lon Beardsley.
"Maybe you"ll give us an introduction to your friends in the show."
"Surest thing you know," a.s.sented Bob. "I got a letter from them this morning, and they promised to call me up around four o"clock this afternoon. They"ll probably come to our house for dinner, and we"ll all go down to the theater together."
And sure enough, Bob had hardly reached home that afternoon when the telephone bell rang, and Larry"s familiar voice came over the wire.
"h.e.l.lo, Bob!" he said. "How"s the boy? Did you get my letter all right?"
"I sure did," answered Bob. "It"s fine to hear your voice again. We"re all tickled to death to know that you"re showing in Clintonia this week. You and Tim have got to come here for supper to-night, you know."
"We"d be glad to, if it isn"t imposing on your folks," said Larry. "We don"t get many regular home dinners these days, you can bet, and it will be a treat for us."
"All right, then, we"ll be looking for you," replied Bob. "Get here as early as you can."
This Larry promised to do, and after a little further conversation rang off. Bob then called up the other radio boys and told them to come to his house immediately after supper, so that they would have time for a few words with Larry and Tim, after which they could all go down to the theater together.
CHAPTER X
A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT