Jump in, old fellow, and have your try at it." Dalzell, however, shook his head and remained silent on the subject after that.
To both Dick and Dave it seemed as though the next few days simply refused to budge along on the calendar.

Certainly neither of them had ever known time to pass so slowly before.
"I hope I'll be able to keep my nerve up until the seventeenth," groaned Darrin.
"Surely, you will," grinned Dick.

"You've got to!" "I've been studying until all the words on a page seem to run together, and I don't know one word from another," complained Dave.
"Then drop study---if you dare to!" "I'm thinking of it," proposed Darrin seriously.

"Actually, I've been boning so that the whole thing gets on my nerves, and stays there like a cargo of lead." "Let's pledge ourselves, then, not to study on the fifteenth or the sixteenth," urged Dick.
"I'll go you, right off, on that," cried Darrin eagerly.
"And we'll spend those two days in the open air, roaming around, and trying to enjoy ourselves," added Prescott.
"Enjoy ourselves---with all the load of suspense hanging over our heads ?" gasped Darrin.
"Well, we'll try it anyway." To most people in and around Gridley the world, in these few days, seemed to bob along very much as usual.

Dick and Dave, however, knew better.
At last came the evening of the sixteenth! Both anxious boys turned in early, though neither expected to sleep much.