“That would be bully fun, if we really knew that Dick had sold the canoe,” smiled young Holmes wistfully.  “However, until we do know, I suggest that we avoid all false hopes and keep away from all catalogues.”

At this instant Tom nudged Dave.  Two men were passing, and one of them was saying to the other: 

“Yes; I sold the double house for eighty-two hundred dollars—–­a clear profit of twenty-two hundred.  Then I put four thousand more with that money and bought the Miller place.  Within a couple of years I’ll get rid of the Miller place for at least sixteen thousand dollars.  I’ve never known a time when real estate money came in as easily.”

“Is he talking about real money?” grunted Darrin.  “He can’t be!”

“He is,” Tom declared.  “That’s Buller, of Wrenville.  He is a very successful man in real estate.  Father knows him.”

“Humph!  Talking of thousands, when a few ten dollar bills would fix us for the summer,” muttered Dave Darrin.  “I wonder if men ever stop to think how it feels for a boy to go around broke.”

“I spoke to my dad along those lines once,” smiled Tom.

“What did he say?” asked Danny Grin.

“Oh, dad told me there was no objection whatever to my starting out and earning a lot of money.  He explained that was how he had gotten his.”

The other youngsters were smiling now, for, as was well known to them all, Mr. Reade wasn’t credited with possessing a great deal of money.

“Well, are you fellows coming down to my place to look over the catalogue?” Dave proposed once more.  “It’ll help to kill time during our suspense.”

Though they felt rather foolish about spending their dollars before they obtained them, the four high school boys turned to follow Darrin, when a voice behind them called: 

“Oh, boys!  Just a moment, please!”

“It’s the man in the four-quart silk hat,” Tom whispered, as the five chums baited and turned.

“Man?” echoed Darry, though also in a whisper.  “Humph!  Hibbert looks more like a boy who has run away from home with his father’s wardrobe.”

Certainly, as he hurried toward them, Mr. Hibbert did look youthful.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-two—–­perhaps he was a year younger than that.  He was not very tall, nor very stout.  His round, rosy, cherubic, smoothly shaven face made him look almost girlish.  He was faultlessly, expensively dressed, though on this hot July afternoon a black frock coat and high silk hat looked somewhat out of keeping with the day’s weather report.

“I just wanted to ask you boys to do me something of a favor,” Mr. Alonzo Hibbert went on.

“Name the favor, please,” urged Tom with drawling gentleness.

“Can you tell me what shop that is over there?” inquired Mr. Hibbert, pointing, with a dapper cane, across the street.

“That is Anderson’s Ice Cream Emporium,” Tom answered gravely.