They all went up to the mud puddle. Bob was helping his companion get cleaned up in as friendly a way as if they had been chums for years.

“Why,” shouted Sammy, in blank surprise, “it’s the fat boy.”

“So it is,” replied Frank, in a wondering tone.

“Hello,” spoke the boy who had tumbled out of the auto. “You fellows here, too?”

Bob’s face, as were the faces of the others, was set in a broad smile. They all had good reason to remember “the fat boy.”

“Yes, it’s me,” said the victim of the accident, rubbing some dirt out of one ear. “Is the machine all right, Buxton?”

“Yes, the machine is all right,” replied the man; “but ten[13] feet more, and it would have been all wrong. What was you trying to do with it, anyhow?”

[13]

“I thought I would turn it around. I only touched one little handle, and then the foot-plate, and the pesky auto wouldn’t go straight at all. Yes, fellows,” smiled the speaker at Frank and Sammy, “I’m like the bad penny, turned up again.”

“I’m glad to see you in Fairview,” said Frank. “How are you getting on at the academy?”

“Oh, I’ve quit there,” said Tom Chubb, otherwise “the fat boy.”

“How is that?”

“They said I wasn’t far enough along to keep up with the class.”

“I see.”

“You know I don’t know much,” said the fat boy, frankly. “The fellows all made fun of me. Then they got mad. I couldn’t hit back when they fought me, I was so fat. Well, all I could do was to get them in a corner and fall on them.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Sammy.

“That’s pretty good,” chuckled Bob.

“Father is thinking of coming to Fairview to live for the summer,” went on the fat boy. “I think we’ll take that vacant house Buxton was just looking at.”

“Why, then, you may come to our school?” said Sammy.

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