"We'll say something, too, if you don't hurry up and get the agony over with," threatened Joe. "Make it snappy, before we weaken under the strain and throw you out the window."
"Well, then," said Herb: "Why does the tennis ball? And the answer is: Because the catgut on the racquet." And he broke into a peal of laughter, in which, however, his friends refused to join.
"Well, what's the matter?" asked Herb, cutting short his laughter as he saw that the others only shook their heads despondently. "Why in the name of all that's good don't you laugh? Wasn't that a peach of a joke?"
"Herb, the only reason we don't kill you right away is because you will be punished more by being allowed to live and suffer," said Bob. "That was a fierce joke."
"Oh, get out!" exclaimed Herb, in an injured tone. "You fellows don't know a clever joke when you hear it."
"Likely enough we don't," admitted Joe. "We don't get much chance to hear clever jokes while you're around."
"Oh, well, if you don't like my jokes, why don't you think up some of your own?" asked Herb, in an aggrieved tone. "There's no law against it, you know."
"There ought to be, though," put in Jimmy.
"Oh, what do you know about it?" asked Herb, incensed at the laughter that followed this thrust. "All you can think of, Doughnuts, is what you're going to get to eat when the next meal time comes around."
"Well, I enjoy thinking of that so much, that I'd be foolish to think of anything else," said Jimmy, serenely.
"You win, Jimmy," said Bob, as he and Joe shouted with laughter at Herb's discomfiture. The latter was inclined to be sulky at first, but he soon forgot his ill humor, and was as gay as the others as they discussed their plans for the fall and winter months.
Contrary to the predictions of some of their neighbors in Clintonia, their enthusiasm for radio work had increased rather than diminished, and they were anxious to become the possessors of sets capable of hearing any station in the United States, and perhaps even the large foreign stations. Of course, this meant that their apparatus would have to be much more intricate and expensive than any they had constructed hitherto, but the realization of this did not deter them. On the contrary, the thought that the task would be one to tax their skill and knowledge to the utmost only served to make them more eager to begin. They examined numberless catalogues and circulars in an effort to determine where and at what cost they could obtain their necessary supplies, jotting down notes as they went along. By supper time they had acquired a pretty good idea of what their new equipment would cost, and were pleased to find that it came within the amount that they thought they could get by selling two of their present complete sets.