"How's your neck?" asked Cathead as he approached Sube, who stood looking at a poster of the next day's bill.
"My neck?" asked Sube, momentarily off his guard. "Who said an'thing--Oh! my _neck_! Oh, yes; my neck is fine! It was all right jus' as soon as I sat in the back seat a little while." He gave his head a few experimental twists, and then added in confirmation: "Yup, it's all right."
The hour was late when the theatergoers reached home. The last guest had departed, and their father was unamiably engaged in carrying out the folding chairs, which had been donated for the occasion by the local undertakers, and piling them on the front porch.
The boys, preferring almost anything to going to bed, offered their assistance, which their father rather reluctantly declined. Cathead dallied, asking numerous questions about the lecture, but Sube trudged off to bed without a word.
The following day a cold rain kept the boys indoors. Throughout the morning frequent observations were made, but no cheering patch of blue large enough to make the mythical Dutchman's breeches could be seen. Although the rain began before seven it failed to stop before 'leven. In fact, it was three o'clock before it let up at all.
By lunch time the boys had resigned themselves to the weather, and with the aid of the telephone had succeeded in interesting Gizzard and Cottontop in the "gym" that had sprung into being in the upper story of the barn.
The earlier part of the afternoon was spent by the four boys in improving the equipment of the gym and in demonstrating their abilities as death-defying athletes. It was the performance by Sube of a feat called the "muscle-grinder or Hindu punishment" that really started the trouble, for it threw him into a state of perspiration which caused him to remark that he would enjoy taking a swim.
"I guess you wouldn't find the water pretty cold!" suggested the practical Gizzard. "Oh, no!"
"But s'posin' we had it fixed so's it would be warm! S'posin' we had a little shack built right over the swimmin'-hole!"
"But I can _s'pose_ it would be warm, can't I? I can s'pose anything, can't I? I can s'pose boilin' ice-water if I want to, can't I?"
"You can s'pose it," admitted Gizzard grudgingly, "but that won't make it so. Who'd want boilin' ice-water, anyway?"
