Over near the road a group of men and boys were laughing heartily.  It was at the lawyer’s son that their mirth was directed.  As for Dick & Co., the Gridley crowd felt only sympathy.  The proceedings of the afternoon had but emphasized the old idea that at an auction sale one must either use great judgment or take his chances.

“Say,” called Dick, “there goes the very man we ought to ask for advice.  Harry, will you run over and ask Hiram Driggs to come here?”

Hazelton, nodding, hurried away at full speed.  “Hiram Driggs is an awfully high-priced man,” sighed Tom Reade.

“Perhaps his mere advice won’t come high,” young Prescott answered.  “If it does, we’ll begin right by telling him that we have no money—–­that we’ve nothing in fact but a birchbark white elephant on our hands.”

Driggs came over promptly, his keen, shrewd eyes twinkling.

“So you boys have been buying away from my shop, and have been ‘stung,’ eh!” queried Driggs, a short, rather stout man, of about forty.

“Robbed, I’d call it,” replied Dave Darrin.

“Same thing, at a horse trade or an auction sale,” hinted Hiram dryly as he got up on the truck.  “Let’s have a look at your steam yacht.”

For a few moments Driggs looked the canoe over in grim silence.

“Whew!” was time final comment.

“Pretty bad, isn’t it?” Dick inquired.

“Well, for my part, I’d sooner buy a real wreck,” Driggs announced.  “This may be an auctioneer’s idea of honor.  What was his name?”

“The auctioneer’s name?  Caswell,” Dick answered.

“I’ll make a note of that name,” said Driggs, drawing out notebook and pencil, “and keep away from any auction that has a man named Caswell on the quarter-deck.  Now, boys, what do you want to know about this canoe that your eyes don’t tell you?”

“About how much would it cost us to fix her?” asked Prescott.

“Thirty dollars—–­maybe thirty-two,” said Driggs, after another casual look at the canoe.

“Let’s announce the bonfire for to-night,” urged Greg.

“We haven’t any such sum of money, Mr. Driggs,” Dick went on.

“Too bad, boys, for you’d probably have a lot of fun in this craft.  If you want to sell it, maybe I could allow you four dollars for the craft as she stands.”

“We’d hate to part with the canoe,” Dick continued.

“I know, I know,” remarked Driggs sympathetically.  “It was wanting a boat badly when I was a boy that drove me into the boat business.  But I didn’t have to handle birch bark then, or my first craft would have sunk me.  Say, boys, great joke how young Ripley got stung so badly, wasn’t it?”

“I know about how he feels,” remarked Dick.

“Yes, of course,” smiled Driggs.  “But you boys are entitled to some honest sympathy.  I don’t imagine young Ripley will get much sympathy, will he?”

“Not a heap,” Greg Holmes answered.