“Oh, how nice!” cried Grace.

“Let me pin this on you,” said Dora to Dick, and fastened the small bouquet in his buttonhole.  The other girls performed a like service for Tom and Sam.

The meal was served in a private dining-room, so all felt free to act as if they were at home.  They talked and cracked jokes to their hearts’ content, and the boys told their best stories.  They also grew serious at times, talking of home and their folks.

“Mamma hasn’t heard another word from Tad Sobber,” said Dora to Dick.

“And I hope he never appears again,” answered the oldest Rover.

The meal was about half finished when one of the waiters came to Dick and said the chauffeur would like to speak to him.

“Very well,” answered the oldest Rover, and excusing himself to the others, he went out into the hallway.

“I’ve just got a telephone message from Raytown,” said the chauffeur.  “My brother has been hurt at a fire there, and they want me.  I don’t know what to do.  I might send for another man to run the car, but you’ll have to wait until he comes.  Would you be willing to do that?”

“I might run the car myself,” answered Dick.  He could see that the chauffeur was much worried over the news he had received.

“Could you do that, sir?  If you could it would help me out a whole lot.  My brother has a wife and two little children, and she’ll be scared to death if Bill is injured.”

“Then go right along.  Only see to it that the car is in good working order,” answered Dick.  And then he followed the chauffeur to the shed where the automobile was stored, and had the peculiar working of that make of car explained to him.  As my old readers know, Dick had driven a car before, and understood very well how to do it.

As there was no particular need for hurrying, and as it promised to be a fine moonlight night, the Rover boys and their company did not leave the hotel until nearly eight o’clock.  Then Dick lit the lamps of the machine and ran it around to the piazza, and the others bundled in.

“Are you sure you can run this car, Dick?” asked Dora a bit timidly.

“Oh, yes, Dora.  It is of a make that I have run before, only the other was a five-seat instead of a seven.  But this one runs the same way.”

“Dick is a born chauffeur,” said Sam.  “Wait till you see him let the car out to sixty miles an hour.”

“Mercy!  I don’t want to run as fast as that!” cried Grace.

“We’d all be killed if anything should happen,” added Nellie.

“Don’t you worry.  Dick will crawl along at three miles per,” drawled Tom.  “The moonlight is too fine to run fast.  Besides, Dora is going to sit in front with him.”

“I’ll make the run in about an hour and a half,” said Dick, “and that is fast enough.  We don’t want to get back too early.”

“Might go around the block,” suggested Sam.