CHAPTER XXII.
HI HEARS SOMETHING ELEVATING "Do you fellows really want to know what the man on the clubhouse steps said ?" Prescott asked, looking about him with a tantalizing smile.
"Do we ?" came in a chorus.
"Hurry up and tell us!" "Quit your kidding," begged Tom Reade.

"Dick, we've waited for months to have the mystery solved.

Now, surely, we ought to know.
Look at these diplomas; they certify that we know everything else.

So trot on the speech of the man on the clubhouse steps." "Or look for trouble!" added Harry Hazelton warningly.
Dick appeared to hesitate.

The boys around him, highly curious, thought he was debating within himself whether or not to give the desired information.
"Come, get swift," desired Spoff Henderson.
"See here, fellows, I'll tell you what I'll do," proposed Dick at last.
"You'll tell us what the man on the clubhouse steps said," broke in Toby Ross.
"Yes," Dick agreed; "but you'll have to let me do so on my own conditions and in my own way.