ter, and it will perhaps be better for you to go in search of them
than to sit down here and be on pins and needles over it;" and Doctor
Clay smiled kindly.
"Then you are really going to London!" cried Phil, when he heard the
news. "Wish I was going, too!"
"So do I, Phil," answered Dave. "We'd have as good a time as we did on
your father's ship in the South Seas."
"I am going to write to my folks about this at once," said Roger. His
heart was set on going to England with his chum.
As soon as Dave's friends heard that he was going away once more,
several began to plan a celebration for him.
"Let us hold a special meeting of the Gee Eyes, for Dave's benefit,"
said Sam Day; and so it was voted.
The Gee Eyes, as my old readers know, was a secret organization that had
existed at Oak Hall for a long time. The words stood for the two letters
G and I, which in turn stood for the name of the club, Guess It. The
club was organized largely for fun, and this fun consisted mainly in the
initiation of new members.
At one time Gus Plum had been at the head of a rival organization called
the Dare Do Anything Club, but this had been broken up by Doctor Clay
because of the unduly severe initiation of a small boy, named Frank
Bond, who had almost lost his reason thereby. Now Gus had applied for
membership in the Gee Eyes and had said that he would stand for any
initiation they offered.
"I have half a mind to take Plum up," said Phil Lawrence, who was the
Honorable Muck-a-Muck, otherwise president, of the club. "He deserves to
be put through a strong course of sprouts for what he did to Frank
Bond."
"All right, I am willing for one," said Buster Beggs, who was the
secretary, under the high-sounding title of Lord of the Penwiper. "But
we will have to ask the others first."
A canvass was made and it was decided to initiate Gus Plum on Friday
night, after which the club was to celebrate the departure of Dave in as
fitting a style as the exchequer of the organization permitted. Plum was
duly notified, and said he would be on hand as required. "And you can do
anything short of killing me," he added, with a grin.
"It will make Plum feel better if he suffers," said Dave. "He hasn't got
Frank Bond off his mind yet." Which statement was true. Plum and Bond
had made up, and the former bully now did all in his power to aid the
small, timid fellow in his studies and otherwise.
The club met in an old boathouse down the river.
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