“It’s too hot,” declared Bob. “I can tell you all that’s on it. Besides, the fellow who was putting it up gave me some circulars.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so at first?” demanded Jerry. “Pass ’em over and I’ll take a squint at ’em.”
Bob pulled some papers from his pocket and handed them over to Ned and Jerry, who were soon deeply interested in the somewhat extravagant statements advertising the carnival.
While they are thus engaged it will be a good opportunity to tell you a little something about them, where they lived and how they came to be known as the “motor boys.”
Bob Baker was the son of Andrew Baker, a wealthy banker, while Ned Slade’s father kept the largest department store in Cresville, and was counted well off. Jerry was the only son of Mrs. Julia Hopkins, a widow, and she had a comfortable income from wise investments made by her husband.
The three boys, who lived in the New England town of Cresville, not far from Boston, had been chums as long as they could remember.
Their early adventures were told of in the first book of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys.”
They gained the name from the fact that they took part in bicycle races, one of them winning a motor cycle. Later all three acquired those speedy machines, and it was not long before they owned an automobile.
In that they made a long trip overland, and later went into Mexico, where, in company with Professor Uriah Snodgrass, a noted scientist, engaged in making a collection of curious bugs and animals, they discovered a buried city. They returned home from Mexico across the plains, and, shortly after that, using some of the funds from their interest in a gold mine they discovered, they purchased a motor boat.
In that boat, named the _Dartaway_, they had stirring times, as told in the fifth volume of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys Afloat.” Following their adventures around home they made a long trip on the Atlantic, and from there they went into the strange waters of the Florida everglades. Their experiences there were fully equaled by a trip they next made on the Pacific, searching for a mysterious derelict, though they had to make this voyage in a motor boat they hired by the season, as their own was smashed in a railroad wreck as it was being sent home from Florida.