"
"Oh, well, it's done now. To-morrow we'll begin the mounting and wiring.
Then for the aerial!"
But that very to-morrow brought with it the hardest blow the boys had
yet had to face. Full of high spirits, they walked the half mile out to
the Hooper place and found the garage a mass of blackened ruins. It had
caught fire, quite mysteriously, toward morning, and the gardener and
chauffeur, roused by the crackling flames, had worked like beavers but
with only time to push out the two automobiles; they could save nothing
else.
The Hoopers had just risen from breakfast when the boys arrived; at once
Grace came out, and her expressions of regret were such as to imply that
the family had lost nothing, the boys being the only sufferers. And it
_was_ a bit staggering--all their work and machinery and tools and plans
utterly ruined--the lathe and drill a heap of twisted iron. It was with
a rueful face that Bill surveyed the catastrophe.
"Never mind, Billy," said Grace, detecting evidence of moisture in his
eyes; but she went over to smiling Gus and gazed at him in wonder.
"Don't you care?" she asked.
"You bet I care; mostly on Bill's account, though. He had set his heart
mighty strong on this. I'm sorry about your loss, too."
"Oh, never mind that! Dad is 'phoning now for carpenters and his
builder. He'll be out in a minute."
Out he did come, with a shout of greeting; he, too, had sensed that the
real regrets would be with them.
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