[Illustration: Roy] CHAPTER V A TRIP OF INSPECTION It turned out when they got there that the real host was not Dick, but Dick’s father. Neither Roy nor Chub had met Mr. Somes before. Like Mr. Cole he was a large man, but his size was rather a matter of breadth and thickness than height. He had a round, clean-shaven, jovial face lighted by a pair of keen steel-gray eyes, and a deep, rumbly voice that seemed to come from the heavy-soled shoes he affected. But he was kindness itself, and by the time they had gathered about the table beside the open window in the big hotel dining-room Roy and Chub were quite captivated. And that luncheon! Chub talks of it yet! There was ice-cold cantaloupe to start with, and then cold bouillon, and tiny clams lying on shells no larger than half-dollars, and chops not much larger than the clams--so small, in fact, that Chub viewed them with dismay until he discovered that there were many, many of them,--and potato croquettes, and pease no larger than birdshot, and Romaine salad, and--but, dear me, no one save Chub can give the entire program at this late day! I know there were lemon tarts and strawberry ice-cream and all sorts of astonishing cakes at the end, though; and I know that Chub was never much more miserable in his life than when he was obliged to stop eating with half his portion of ice-cream unconsumed! Of course such a repast took time, and after it was over no one seemed in any very great hurry to leave the table. So they sat there contentedly while Mr. Somes, craftily led on by Dick, told marvelous stories of mines and discoveries, until Chub was for abandoning the cruise in the _Jolly Roger_ and starting west to prospect for gold. It was almost the middle of the afternoon when they finally left the dining-room, and then a hasty consultation of the time-table showed them that to reach Loving’s Landing that day and return in time for dinner was quite out of the question. Roy and Dick were a little disappointed, but Chub took it philosophically. “We can go up in the morning just as well,” he said. “We can go any day, but it isn’t every day a chap gets the chance of a feed like that. It’s all right for you fellows to make fun, but you haven’t been in training for two months, living on beef and potatoes and rice puddings! I’m not kicking though,” he added softly and reverently, “for that luncheon pretty nearly made up for it all!” So instead of going to Loving’s Landing they ambled downtown, feeling very contented and peaceful, and obtained a price-list from one of the big grocery houses. Armed with this they returned to Dick’s room and made out a long list of purchases. There is no use in setting it down here, for when they reckoned up they found that it came to over ninety dollars! In disgust Roy crumpled it up and threw it into the waste-basket. “We’re awful idiots,” he said. “What’s the good of wasting our time up here when we might be out of doors? Let’s go and have a walk in the Park.”