“Here comes Hi Martin!” called someone.  That youth had just turned a corner, swinging from his left hand a pudgy rubber bag of the kind that is used for holding a wet bathing suit.

“Hello, Prescott,” was Hi’s greeting.  “Are you all ready to be left behind in the spray tomorrow?”

“If you can leave me there,” Dick smiled.  “Been out for a practice swim, have you?”

“Yes,” nodded Hi; “and if you had seen my speed this afternoon you’d have been scared away from the river for to-morrow.”

“Well, I hope one of us wins,” grinned Dick.

“One of us?” sniffed Hi.  “Of course, one of us has to win when there are only us two in that race.  And, after I beat you to-morrow,” Hi added consequentially, “I’ll be off and away for a good time.  Saturday father is going to take our family to New York for three weeks.”

“Going to stop at one of the big hotels there?” Reade inquired, looking up from his newspaper.

“Of course we are,” Hi rejoined, swelling out his chest.  “We shall stop at one of the biggest and finest hotels in the city.”

“Then don’t get a room too high up from the ground,” advised Tom.  “I’ve just been reading in the evening paper that the city authorities in New York have taken all the elevators out of all the biggest hotels.”

“Why?” demanded Hi.

“The paper says it’s because the elevators are considered too dangerous,” Tom replied innocently.

“I don’t believe it,” scoffed Hi.  “Why, how could people get up to their rooms on the fifteenth or eighteenth floor of one of the skyscraper hotels?”

“Oh, well,” Tom replied artlessly, “according to the paper the hotels are all going to be equipped with safety-raisers.”

“Safety-razors?” demanded Hi Martin blankly.  “You idiot, what good would safety-razors be for getting people up twenty floors in a hotel?”

There was a moment’s pause.  Then a few chuckles came, followed by a few more.

“Whoop!” yelled Danny Grin.  Snatching the bathing suit bag from Hi’s hand, Dalzell got a good hold on the tie strings, then swung the bag, bringing it down on the top of Hi’s head.

“Run along home, Martin!” jeered Dan.  “If don’t tumble before bed time, then ask your father how it is that dangerous elevators can be replaced with safety-raisers.  Here’s your bag.  Scoot—–­before an idea hits you!”

Red-faced and angry, but still puzzled, Hi snatched at his bathing suit bag and hastily decamped.

“Now he’ll beat you at swimming or die tomorrow,” predicted Dave grimly.

Chapter XXIII

Who won the swimming matches?

Thanks to Len Spencer’s interest in schoolboy athletics, there was a goodly crowd gathered at the river bank the next afternoon.  Many people came out in boats.  There were at least a dozen launches, including the one that bore Len Spencer, who had been chosen to conduct the races.