There was another picnic about this time and the transportation company made the most of it. As, however, it was a Sunday School affair, most of the participants were children and the automobile was in less demand than at the previous picnic. Tom and Willard both worked hard that day, for Jerry and Spider deserted and journeyed to Providence with the high school baseball team to witness the return match with Providence Preparatory, and Willard had to drive Julius Cæsar and transport baggage. To add to Tom’s troubles, a rear tire blew out half-way between town and the picnic grounds and he was forced to lie up by the roadside for half an hour while, with the doubtful assistance of two elderly ladies and a twelve-year-old boy, the old tube and shoe were taken off and new ones put on. Altogether that Saturday was a busy and trying day, and Tom was glad to crawl into bed at nine o’clock. Just as he was falling off into delicious slumber a low but insistent whistle sounded under his window and he stumbled sleepily over to the casement. “Tom! That you?” said Jerry’s voice. “Yes; what is it?” “I thought you’d like to know how the game came out. We lost, eleven to three.” “Glad of it!” growled Tom as, bumping into a chair on the way, he again sought slumber. CHAPTER XXI JIMMY MAKES A PROPOSITION “We were wondering, Jimmy,” said Tom, “if you knew of a fellow we could get to run the car for us this winter. You see, it’s getting pretty near time for school to open, and when I’m at school the only train I’ll be able to meet is the 6:05; except, of course, on Saturdays. And Willard’s going away to college pretty soon, you know. So we’ve either got to find someone to drive the car or give up the business.” “It would be a shame to do that,” replied Jimmy Brennan reflectively. “I suppose you’re doing pretty well, aren’t you?” Tom nodded. “We took in about a couple of hundred last month. And we’re doing better this month, so far. So, of course, neither Willard nor I want to give it up.” “I should think not!” Jimmy tilted back against the window ledge in his chair and looked thoughtful. It was a Sunday afternoon and the boys had sought him at his lodgings on the lower end of Pine Street. From the one window in the room they looked down across a number of spur tracks toward the long, many-windowed buildings of the paper mills. The house held the mingled odors of the Sunday dinner and factory smoke. One never got very far from the smoke in Audelsville, anyway. Jimmy’s room was small and rather bare, but everything about it looked clean and neat, while Jimmy himself, dressed in his Sunday clothes and without the usual smudges across his face, was quite a different looking Jimmy from the one they were used to seeing. Tom viewed him somewhat anxiously in the pause, while Willard’s gaze roved among the many photographs that were tucked into the edge of the mirror above the chest of drawers. At last,