CHAPTER V
A TRIP OF INSPECTION
IT turned out when they got there that the real host was not Dick, but Dick’s father. Neither Roy nor Chub had met Mr. Somes before. Like Mr. Cole he was a large man, but his size was rather a matter of breadth and thickness than height. He had a round, clean-shaven, jovial face lighted by a pair of keen steel-gray eyes, and a deep, rumbly voice that seemed to come from the heavy-soled shoes he affected. But he was kindness itself, and by the time they had gathered about the table beside the open window in the big hotel dining-room Roy and Chub were quite captivated. And that luncheon! Chub talks of it yet! There was ice-cold cantaloupe to start with, and then cold bouillon, and tiny clams lying on shells no larger than half-dollars, and chops not much larger than the clams—so small, in fact, that Chub viewed them with dismay until he discovered that there were many, many of them,—and
61
