Chapter 1. The Man In The Four-Quart Hat

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_ CHAPTER I. THE MAN IN THE FOUR-QUART HAT

"You'll find your man in the lobby of the Eagle Hotel or in the neighborhood of the hotel on Main Street," said Dick Prescott. "You can hardly miss him."

"But how will I know Mr. Hibbert, when I see him?" pursued the stranger.

"I don't know that his name is Hibbert," Dick answered. "However, he is the only young man who has just reached town fresh from Europe. His trunks are pasted all over with labels."

"You'll know the young man, sir," Tom Reade broke in, with a quiet smile. "He always wears a spite-fence collar. You could bill a minstrel show on that collar."

"A collar is but a slight means of identification, in a city full of people," remarked the stranger good-humoredly.

"Well, then, sir, your man also wears a four-quart silk hat, and a long black coat that makes you think of a neat umbrella covering," Tom went on.

"And lavender trousers," supplemented Greg Holmes.

"Always wears these things, you say?" questioned the stranger.

"He has, so far," Dick nodded. "Mr. Hibbert has been in town only since late yesterday afternoon, and it's only four in the afternoon to-day."

"I shall be able to find my man all right," smiled the stranger. "You've informed me that he is stopping at the Eagle Hotel. Until now, I knew only that Mr. Hibbert was in Gridley. Thank you, young gentlemen."

"Now, I wonder how he knew that," murmured Tom reflectively.

"Knew what?" demanded Dave Darrin.

"That we're gentlemen," Tom responded.

"Oh, he guessed that," suggested Harry Hazelton.

"He's a good guesser, then," remarked Tom. "I always like to see a man so discerning. I'm ashamed to confess it, but Dick is the only fellow in our crowd who looks at all like a gentleman. He is dressed in his Sunday best. Look at us!"

The other five certainly looked neat enough, even though they did not wear their "Sunday best."

"Now, fellows, what's the lowest I'm to take for the canoe?" Dick inquired, after a glance at his watch. "The train is due in two minutes."

Instantly his five chums looked thoughtful.

"You'll get the most that you can, of course," Greg insisted.

"I shall try to get a good price," Dick nodded, "but I may find myself up against close bargainers. So hurry up and vote as to the lowest price that I'm to accept under any circumstances."

"What do you say?" asked Tom Reade, looking at Dave.

"We ought to get sixty dollars for it, at the very lowest," Darrin replied, slowly. "I'd like to pull in seventy-five dollars, for we need every penny of the latter amount."

"We might get along with seventy," hinted Harry Hazelton. "Suppose we say seventy dollars as the lowest possible price that we can consider."

"Sixty-five dollars, anyway," urged Dan Dalzell, otherwise known as "Danny Grin."

"What's your own idea, Dick?" asked Tom Reade, as the distant whistle sounded.

"If you fellows are going to be content with a sixty or seventy-dollar bottom price," suggested Prescott, "I wish you'd elect someone else to go in my place."

"Do you think we'll have to take fifty?" asked Tom Reade looking aghast.

"If you send me, and leave the trade in my hands," retorted young Prescott, "then you'll have to accept ninety dollars as the very bottom price, or there won't be any sale."

"Hurrah!" chuckled Danny Grin. "That's the talk! Ninety---or nothing!"

"Do you think you can get that much?" asked Dave doubtingly.

"I'll have to, or I won't make any trade," Dick smiled, though there was a glint of firmness in his eyes.

"Let it be ninety dollars or nothing, then," agreed Tom Reade, adding, under his breath, "With the accept on the 'nothing.'"

As Dick glanced about him at the faces of his chums they all nodded their approval.

"I have my final instructions, then," Dick announced, as the east-bound train rolled in at the Gridley station. It had been from the westbound train, a few minutes before, that the stranger seeking Mr. Hibbert had alighted.

"Wish you luck, old chap!" cheered Dave, as Dick ascended the carsteps.

"I wish us all luck," Dick called back from the car platform, "and I'll try to bring it back to you."

The train was moving as Dick entered one of the day coaches. Silently his chums wished that they might all have gone with Dick, instead of turning away from the station, as they were now doing. Funds were low with Dick & Co., however, and all hands had contributed to buy young Prescott's round-trip ticket to Porthampton, more than an hour's ride away.

"Do you believe Dick can get ninety dollars for the canoe?" asked Dave at last, when the high school boys were half way to Main Street.

"Why not? It's a six-paddle war canoe, a genuine one, and in good condition for the water," Tom Reade replied.

"But it's only a second-hand canoe," Darrin argued. "It was second-hand when we bought it at the Wild West auction a year ago."

"That canoe is in just as good order as it ever was," Greg maintained. "It's a shame for us to sell it at all. We could have had a lot of fun with it this summer."

"Yes," sighed Danny Grin, "if only Harry and I hadn't been forbidden by our parents to have anything more to do with the canoe."

"One thing is certain," spoke up Tom promptly. "With two of our fellows barred from entering the canoe we couldn't have any fun. Dick & Co. have always pulled together, you know. There are six of us, but we don't break up into smaller parties, and we don't recruit our ranks with newcomers."

"I don't see why my father had to kick so about the canoe," sighed Harry Hazelton. "We enjoyed the good old canoe all last summer, and not one of us got hurt in it, or from it."

"I understand why your father objects, Harry," broke in Darrin. "With five drowning accidents from canoes hereabouts, already this summer, and two of those accidents on our own river, your father has some right to be nervous about the canoe."

"I can swim," argued Harry.

"So could both of the fellows who were drowned right here in the river," rejoined Reade. "Harry, I don't blame either your father or Dan's mother for objecting. Anyway, think of the fun we're going to have, this summer, of a different kind."

"If we sell the canoe," Darrin laughed. "But we haven't sold it yet."

"Oh, Dick can get something for the canoe," insisted Reade.

"Yes; but 'something' won't fill the bill, now, for you all heard Dick say he wouldn't take less than ninety dollars for it. When Dick says a thing like that he means it. He will bring back ninety dollars, or-----"

"Or nothing," finished Dave. "Somehow, I can't just figure out what any man would look like who'd give ninety dollars for an old second-hand war canoe, even if it is of Indian model."

"And made of genuine birch bark, which is so hard to get these days," added Reade. "Fellows, I can't believe that our old Dick will come back whipped. Defeat isn't a habit of his, you know."

So the "Co." of Dick & Co. wandered up on to Main Street, a prey to suspense. Some hours must pass ere they could hope to know the result of their young leader's mission at Porthampton.

All the member of Dick & Co. are assuredly familiar enough our readers. These six young Americans, Gridleyites, amateur athletes and high school boys, were first introduced to the reader during their eventful days of early chumship at the Central Grammar School. Their adventures have been related in detail in the "_Grammar School Boys Series_." How they made their start in athletics, as grammar school boys, and, more important still, how they made their beginnings in character forming, have all been related in that series. We next came upon Dick & Co. in the "_High School Boys Series_." All of our readers recall the rousing story of "_The High School Freshmen_." Young Prescott and his chums were bound to be "different," even as freshmen; so, without being in the least "fresh," they managed to make their influence felt in Gridley High School during their first year there. Though, as freshmen, they were not allowed to take part in athletics, they contrived to "boost up" Gridley High School athletics several notches, and aided in putting the Athletic Association on a firmer basis than it had ever known before. They did several other noteworthy things in their freshman year, all of which are now wholly familiar to our readers. Their doings in the second high school year are fully chronicled in "_The High School Pitcher_." In this second volume the formal and exciting entry of Dick & Co. into high school athletics is splendidly described, with a wealth of rousing adventure and humorous situations.

This present series, which is intended to describe the vacations of our Gridley High School boys in between their regular school years, opened with the preceding volume, "_The High School Boys Canoe Club_." Within the pages of that volume are set forth the manner in which Dick & Co. secured, at an auction sale of a Wild West show, a six-paddle Indian war canoe. All their problems in getting this canoe into serviceable condition made highly interesting reading. The host of adventures that surrounded their vacation at Lake Pleasant proved thrilling indeed to our readers. How they met and contested with the canoe clubs from other high schools was delightfully set forth. The efforts of Fred Ripley to spoil the fun of Dick & Co. during that vacation, formed another strong feature of the tale.

We now find our young high school friends, just after the Fourth of July, at a very exciting point in their careers. As has been intimated, Harry Hazelton's and Dan Dalzell's parents had grown nervous about the canoeing sport, and had urged their sons not to enter the craft again. As Dick & Co. had always been companions in all forms of sport, the other four chums had promptly decided to sell the canoe, if possible, and to devote the proceeds to going off in the "real woods" to camp.

And now a probable customer at Porthampton had been found, and Dick had departed by train to see whether the sale could be effected.

"I've twenty cents left. Is there money enough in the crowd to buy five ice creams?" asked Tom Reade, displaying two dimes.

"I've a whole half dollar, though you won't believe it until you see it," laughed Dave Darrin.

"Then there's enough for cream," decided Tom.

"I'll put in my half, if you fellows say so," Dave went on. "But we may soon be in need of quite a bit of money. Wouldn't it be better to hold on to our fruit of the mint?"

"When we sell the canoe we'll have plenty of money," suggested Danny Grin.

"Very true, old Smilax," nodded Dave. "But what if Dick doesn't sell it?"

"Then we won't have plenty of money," responded Greg promptly.

"If Dick doesn't make a sale to the parties he has gone to see," Dave went on argumentatively, "we may want money to buy him a ticket to some other town. It won't be wise to spend our little capital until we see some more money coming in."

"That sounds like common sense," agreed Reade, dropping his dimes back into his pocket. "Still, I'm sorry that we're not rich enough to finance the ice cream proposition and still have enough capital left."

"So am I sorry," sighed Danny Grin. "This waiting for Dick Prescott to get back with the news is a wearing proposition."

"Come down to my house," suggested Dave. "I've got that catalogue from the tent and camping goods house. Let's go and look over the catalogue, and try to decide just what we want to buy for our camp when Dick gets the money for the canoe."

"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.

"Let's go over there," proposed Mr. Hibbert smiling, as he glanced from one face to another.

"That proposition was just before the house, and was voted down," Tom continued.

"What was the matter, boys?" demanded young Mr. Hibbert beamingly. "Didn't you have the price?"

"On the contrary, we had the price," Reade answered, as gravely as ever. "However, after discussion, we decided that we had other uses for our capital."

"But I haven't any other uses for my present capital," pursued Mr. Hibbert, as smiling as ever. "So come along, please."

Instead of jumping at the offer, Dick's partners regarded the man in the four-quart hat with some doubt. Often, when offered a courtesy from strangers that they would like to accept, these boys were likely to regard the offer with this same attitude of suspicion. It was not that Dick & Co. meant to be ungracious to strangers, but rather that their boyish experience with the world had taught them that such offers from strangers usually have strings attached to them.

"Don't you young men like ice cream?" asked Mr. Hibbert, looking fully as astonished as he felt.

"Certainly we do, Mr. Hibbert," Tom responded. "But what's the idea? What do you want us to do for you?"

"I ask you for the pleasure of your company," explained Mr. Hibbert. "I'm a stranger in this town, and I'd like a little company."

"And---afterwards?" pursued Reade.

"'Afterwards'?" repeated Alonzo Hibbert looking puzzled.

"What do you want us to do for you by and by?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I see," replied Hibbert, laughing with keen enjoyment. "You think my invitation a bait for services that I expect presently to demand. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. All I want is someone to talk to for the next half hour. Won't you oblige me?"

"Mr. Hibbert," broke in Dave suddenly, "I've just happened to remember that there is a man in town who wants to talk with you. We met him at the station, and he inquired where he could find you."

"I think I know whom you mean," admitted Hibbert.

"We told him you were stopping at the Eagle Hotel," Greg added.

"Then, if the man who is looking for me went to the Eagle Hotel, he has already learned that I am elsewhere. It's his business to find me, not mine to run about town seeking him. He can find me as well in the ice cream shop as in any other place. Will you young men oblige me with your company?"

At a nod from Darrin the others fell in line. Mr. Hibbert led the way across the street, entering the shop, which proved to be empty of other customers.

As the waitress approached the two tables to take the orders for ice cream the host of the occasion turned to his guests.

"Give the young woman your orders, gentlemen," said Alonzo Hibbert.

"Strawberry," said Tom.

"Vanilla," requested Dave.

"Oh, fudge!" interposed their host.

"We haven't any fudge ice cream, sir," remarked the waitress without smiling.

"I cried fudge on their orders," remarked Hibbert gayly. "They are too modest. Young woman, have you still some of those cantaloupes, which you cut open and fill with different flavors of cream and water ice?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then, young gentlemen, permit me to change the order to one of those cantaloupes for each of you."

The waitress departed on her errand, while Reade and Darrin glanced at each other, somewhat aghast. The delicacy ordered by Mr. Hibbert cost a quarter of a dollar a portion.

When the orders were brought and placed on the table, Alonzo Hibbert draw from his pocket a roll of bills, stripping off the outermost and handing it to the waitress. Yet their host gave no sign of attempting to make a vulgar display of his money. He seemed rather unconscious of the possession of it.

"Are these favorites of yours?" inquired Mr. Hibbert presently of Greg, indicating the multi-colored load of ices, each resting in a half of a cantaloupe.

"Not exactly favorites," Greg replied. "We don't often have the money to spend on such an expensive treat."

"Don't you?" inquired Hibbert in a tone of considerable surprise, as though wondering why everyone in the world wasn't as well supplied with money as he himself was.

Then, after a pause, their host asked of Greg:

"Would you like always to have plenty of money?"

"I suppose everyone would like that," murmured young Holmes.

"Shall I make a prediction?" inquired Hibbert.

"By all means, if it pleases you," Greg answered politely.

"Then, Greg Holmes, I venture to assert that you will very shortly find yourself a millionaire."

This was said with so much earnestness, and apparent sincerity, that all five of the chums now regarded their host intently.

"How soon is that going to happen?" Greg laughingly inquired.

"Within a week," Alonzo Hibbert replied as seriously as ever. He glanced at Greg with a look full of friendly interest.

Tom Reade snorted, almost audibly, then drew down the corners of his mouth to keep himself from laughing outright. Dave, too, took another swift look at their smiling young host.

"I wish you were a sure prophet," murmured Greg trying hard not to laugh.

"I am," declared Mr. Hibbert seriously. "Mind what I tell you, Greg Holmes, within a week you will know yourself to be a millionaire."

"Real money?" demanded Greg.

"Real money," nodded Hibbert positively. "Or else it will be in stocks, bonds or real estate that could be converted into real money."

By this time, Tom, Dave and the others, Greg included, had taken Alonzo Hibbert's measure or believed they had. Their host, then, was a lunatic. A harmless and very amiable lunatic, to be sure, yet none the less the victim of a deranged mind.

"Eaten up your creams?" asked Mr. Hibbert, glancing around. "Then we'll have another apiece."

He signaled the waitress, giving the order.

"Don't ask me---yet---how I know," continued their host, turning once more to Greg Holmes, "but you're going to find yourself a millionaire within a week. I know it. It's all in your ear."

As he spoke Hibbert gave Greg's right ear a playful tweak.

"All in Greg's ear?" muttered Tom Reade under his breath. "I knew that from the outset."

"All in your ear, Holmes!" Hibbert repeated. "Yet it will all be very real money. Oh, won't you be astonished!"

"I---I think I shall, when the wealth rains down upon me," murmured Greg, now afraid to raise his eyes to meet the mocking glance that Darry was sending toward him.

At this moment the stranger of the railway station entered the room, then came toward the table.

"Mr. Hibbert, here is the man who was inquiring for you at the station," Tom announced in a low voice.

Hibbert turned, glancing inquiringly at the stranger.

"Are you Mr. Hibbert?" asked the latter.

"Yes," nodded the man in the four-quart hat. "My name is Colquitt," explained the stranger. "I am from-----"

"Er---yes, quite so," murmured Mr. Hibbert. "And here is the boy. He is named Greg Holmes. Do you observe his right ear?"

"I do," Colquitt assented, after a swift, keen glance.

"He is the boy," Hibbert repeated after a moment's hesitation.

"Where do you live, young man?" asked Colquitt.

Greg supplied the name of his street and the number.

"Name of your family physician?" went on the stranger.

"Dr. Bentley."

"Has he always been your family physician?"

"Ever since I can remember," Greg declared.

"Thank you," and Colquitt turned to leave.

"Won't you stay and have an ice with us?" urged Hibbert.

"Too much to do," replied Colquitt, shaking his head and walking out.

Now the high school boys found themselves doubly, trebly puzzled. If Mr. Hibbert were an amiable lunatic, what of Colquitt? Both had appeared to know something mysterious about young Holmes.

Tom Reade, also, was thinking deeply. Dave Darrin was frowning. Dan Dalzell was grinning slightly, while Hazelton was giving his whole attention to the second ice before him.

Hibbert, however, passed to other topics as lightly as though he had already forgotten all about fortunes and ears. The time passed pleasantly until all of the five chums felt that they could hold no more ices. Then Hibbert, having paid the bill, left the ice cream place with them.

Outside they encountered Mr. Colquitt once more.

"May I have a word aside with you, sir?" demanded Colquitt.

"A dozen," agreed Hibbert readily.

The two walked apart from the boys, going down the sidewalk together slowly. But the youngsters heard Hibbert say earnestly:

"I tell you, Colquitt, that is the boy. He has the ear and all. And he'll be in luck with the money he'll have!"

"And I tell you, Mr. Hibbert, that he isn't the boy at all," retorted Colquitt, with even greater positiveness.

More was said, but the two passed out of hearing.

"Greg," declared Tom Reade solemnly, "it appears that you're the million-dollar kid!"

"I know it," grinned young Holmes. "I am! Also it seems equally certain that I am not!"

"What do you make of the whole business, fellows?" Tom asked, turning to the other chums.

"I've my own idea," laughed Dave Darrin.

"Give it us, quickly!" begged Danny Grin.

"My idea," Dave declared, "is that Hibbert is a rather harmless lunatic, yet one who has to be watched a bit."

"Then what about Colquitt?" urged Hazelton.

"Colquitt," guessed Darry, "is Hibbert's keeper."

"The mild lunatic idea," Tom observed, "fits in well with a chap who, in this sweltering July weather, will insist on wearing a four-quart silk hat, a spite-fence collar and a long, black, double-breasted coat."

"There's only one part of the whole dream that I'd like to believe," sighed young Holmes. "I'd be quite willing to have it proved to me that I'm a young millionaire!"

"What would you do if you had the million---right in your hand?" quizzed Danny Grin.

"I'd transfer it to my pockets," Greg answered.

"What next?" pressed Dan.

"I'd hurry to the bank with the money."

"And---then?" Dan still insisted.

"Then," supplied practical Tom Reade, "he'd end our suspense by paying Dick ninety dollars for our war canoe!"

"I would," Greg agreed. _

Read next: Chapter 2. Dick And Some High Finance


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