The idea of the club-room for reading and games must seem to come from the boys themselves. It must appear that they accepted adult aid perforce, but with the distinct understanding that the room was _theirs_ and that there was not to be too much oversight or control by the supporting members of the institution. The scheme was not at all original with Janice. The nucleus of many a successful free library and village club has been a similar idea. "Marty, why don't you and your chums have a place of your own where you can read and play checkers these cold nights? I hear Josiah Pringle has chased you out of his shop again." "Ya-as--mean old hunks!" "But didn't somebody spoil a whole nest of whips for him by pouring liquid glue over the snappers?" "Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out," complained the boy, but grinning, too. "You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own club-room--now, would you?" "Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's father's barn one't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged cookstove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry." "Oh, I mean a real _nice_ place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place to smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real reading-room, with books, and papers, and games, and all that." "Oh, that would be fine! But where'd we get that kind of a place in Poketown?" queried Marty. That was the start of it. There was an empty store on High Street next to the drug store. It was a big room which could be easily heated by a pot stove and a few lengths of stovepipe. It was owned by the drug-store man, and had been empty a long time. He asked six dollars a month rent for it. It was just about this time that Janice learned she possessed powers of persuasive eloquence. The druggist was the first person she "tackled" in her campaign. "It's a secret, Mr. Massey," she told him; "but some of the boys want a reading-room, and some of the rest of us are anxious to help them get it. Only it mustn't be talked of at first, or it will be all spoiled. You know how 'fraid boys are that there is going to be a trap set for them." "Ain't that so?" chuckled the druggist. "And we want your empty room next door." "Wa-al--I dunno!" returned the man, finding the matter suddenly serious, when it was brought so close home to him. "Of course, we expect to pay for it. Only we'd like to have you cut the rent in two for the first three months," said Janice, quickly. "Say! that might be all right," the druggist observed, more briskly. "But I don't know about all these harum-scarums collecting around this corner. I have been glad heretofore that they have hung around Pringle's, or Joe Henderson's, or the hotel, instead of up here. They've been up to all sorts of mischief." "If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of course that will be understood," said Janice.