The Rover Boys at College | Page 6

talk was
growing a little tiresome to him.
"No, you can't!" snapped the old lady. "We never hire out our carriage.
If we did it would soon go to pieces."
"Is there anybody who can drive us to Brill College? We'll pay for the
service, of course."
"No. But you might get a carriage over to the Sanderson place."
"Where is that?" asked Sam.
"Up the road a piece," and the old lady motioned with her head as she
spoke. "But now, if my son Jimmie was in that accident--"
"Good day, madam," said Dick and walked away, and Sam and Tom
did the same. The old lady continued to call after them, but they paid
no attention.
"Poor Jimmie! If he isn't killed in a railroad accident, he'll be talked to
death some day," was Sam's comment.
"Don't you care. We know that Jimmie's got a wart, anyway," observed
Tom, and he said this so dryly his brothers had to laugh. "Always add
to your fund of knowledge when you can," he added, in imitation of his
Uncle Randolph.

"I hope we have better success at the next farmhouse," said Sam. "I
don't know that I want to walk all the way to Ashton with this dress-suit
case."
"Oh, we're bound to find some kind of a rig at one place or another,"
said Dick. "All the folks can't be like that old woman."
They walked along the road until they came in sight of a second
farmhouse, also set in among trees and bushes. A neat gravel path,
lined with rose bushes, ran from the gate to the front piazza.
"This looks nice," observed Sam. "Some folks of the better sort must
live here."
The three boys walked up to the front piazza and set down their
baggage. On the door casing was an electric push button.
"No old-fashioned knocker here," observed Dick as he gave the button
a push.
"Well, we are not wanting electric push buttons," said Tom. "An
electric runabout or a good two-seat carriage will fill our bill."
The boys waited for fully a minute and then, as nobody came to answer
their summons, Dick pushed the button again.
"I don't hear it," said Sam. "Perhaps it doesn't ring."
"Probably it rings in the back of the house," answered his big brother.
Again the boys waited, and while they did so all heard talking at a
distance.
"Somebody in the kitchen, I guess," said Tom. "Maybe we had better
go around there. Some country folks don't use their front doors
excepting for funerals and when the minister comes."
Leaving their dress-suit cases on the piazza, the Rover boys walked
around the side of the farmhouse in the direction of the kitchen. The

building was a low and rambling one and they had to pass a
sitting-room. Here they found a window wide open to let in the fresh
air and sunshine.
"Now, you must go, really you must!" they heard in a girl's voice. "I
haven't done a thing this afternoon, and what will papa say when he
gets back?"
"Oh, that's all right, Minnie," was the answer in masculine tones. "You
like us to be here, you know you do. And, remember, we haven't seen
you in a long time."
"Yes, I know, Mr. Flockley, but--"
"Oh, don't call me Mr. Flockley. Call me Dudd."
"Yes, and please don't call me Mr. Koswell," broke in another
masculine voice. "Jerry is good enough for me every time."
"But you must go now, you really must!" said the girl.
"We'll go if you'll say good-by in the right kind of a way, eh, Dudd?"
said the person called Jerry Koswell.
"Yes, Minnie, but we won't go until you do that," answered the young
man named Dudd Flockley.
"Wha--what do you mean?" faltered the girl. And now, looking through
the sitting-room window and through a doorway leading to the kitchen,
the Rover boys saw a pretty damsel of sixteen standing by a pantry
door, facing two dudish young men of eighteen or twenty. The young
men wore checkered suits and sported heavy watch fobs and diamond
rings and scarf-pins.
"Why, you'll give us each a nice kiss, won't you?" said Dudd Flockley
with a smile that was meant to be alluring.
"Of course Minnie will give us a kiss," said Jerry Koswell. "Next
Saturday I'm coming over to give you a carriage ride."

"I don't wish any carriage ride," answered the girl coldly. Her face had
gone white at the mention of kisses.
"Well, let's have the kisses anyway!" cried Dudd Flockley, and
stepping forward, he caught the girl by one hand, while Jerry Koswell
grasped her by the other.
"Oh, please let me go!" cried the girl. "Please do! Oh, Mr. Flockley! Mr.
Koswell, don't--don't--please!"
"Now be nice