"Say, get busy, Prescott!" called some of the newer corners.
"Let the crowd all get here," Dick insisted.
Presently the crowd numbered more than fifty a lot of their elders,
seeing such an unusual crowd of youths on one corner, halted curiously
near by. Then Reporter Len Spencer came along.
"What's all the excitement?" demanded Len, ever keen for local
news. One of the boys exclaimed to him what was in the wind.
"Then you'd better hurry up with your statement, Dick," Len advised.
"There'll be a riot here soon."
"Five o'clock was the time named," Prescott rejoined.
Just then the town clock began to strike.
"It's five o'clock now, Dick," called Greg.
"Yes," nodded Dick, "and I'm ready at last to redeem my promise."
"He's going to tell us!"
"Hurrah!"
"Shut up! We want to hear."
"You are all assembled here," Prescott continued, "to hear just
what it was that the man on the clubhouse steps said."
"Cut out the end-man explanations. Give us the kernel!" shouted
one boy.
"What the man on the clubhouse steps said," Dick went ahead, "should
be a model to everyone. It is of especial value to all who are tempted
to talk too fast and then to think an hour later."
"Yes, but what _did_ he say---the man on the clubhouse steps?" howled
Harry Hazelton.
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