"Well, I guess they do," was the laughing answer, for Freddie and Flossie had a pet duck which they took about with them almost as faithfully as they did Snoop. "How is Downy, anyhow?" asked Harry.

"He's fine," answered the little fellow. "Want to see him?" and he took his cousin out to the barn where Downy had a pen all to himself.

"Snoop's gone," said Freddie, "and so is our silver cup, but maybe we'll get that back. It's in a circus."

"In a circus!" cried Harry. "I should think your cat might be in a circus, but not a silver cup."

"We don't know where Snoop is," went on Freddie, "'cause he got away at the time of the circus wreck," and he explained about it.

"But we are almost sure the circus fat lady has our cup."

The Thanksgiving holidays came to an end at last and, much to the regret of the Bobbseys, their visitors, old and young, had to go back to their homes.

"But you'll come again at Christmas; won't you?" asked Flossie as she said good-bye.

"We'll try," said her Uncle Bobbsey. "But maybe there won't be room, with Santa Claus and all his reindeers."

"Oh, we'll make room for you," spoke Freddie. "Santa Claus won't stay long."

With a merry peal of laughter the visitors went off to the station, waving farewells. Then came rather a quiet time at the Bobbsey house, as there always is when visitors go. There seems to be a sort of loneliness, when company leaves, no matter how many there are in the family, nor what fun there is. But the feeling soon pa.s.ses.

"Well, we'll soon be at school again," said Bert, a day or so before the opening of the Winter term. "I wish we'd get some snow. Then it would be more fun."

"Yes," said Freddie. "We could build snow forts and have s...o...b..ll fights. I wish it would snow hard."

"So do I, so we could ride down hill," said Nan, "Is your big bob nearly done, Bert?"

"No, Charley and I have quite a lot of things to do on it yet, but we're going to work every night after school now, and it will soon be finished."

"I'm going to have skates for Christmas," announced Freddie. "I hope the lake will be frozen over by then."

"I guess it will be," returned Bert. "It's getting colder every night."

The Bobbseys were back at school. For a time Nan and Bert, who were in a higher grade, did not like it so well, as they had a strange teacher, and lessons, too, were more difficult. But they were not children who gave up easily, and soon they were at the head of their cla.s.s as usual. Their teacher, too, was much nicer than they had thought at first. They had considered her stern, but it was only her way, and soon wore off.

As for Freddie and Flossie, they had advanced but little except in reading, and this opened a new world to them.

"We'll soon be reading books," boasted Freddie, on his way home one day. "And I'm going to read all about firemen, soldiers and Indians."

"Oh, I'm not," said Flossie. "I'm going to read how to be a nurse, so I can take care of you when you're hurt."

"That will be nice," said Freddie.

One day, at recess, Bert saw Jim Osborne motioning to him in a secret sort of fashion.

"Come on with us," said Jim, who was a new boy in school. "Danny Rugg and some of the rest of us are going to have some sport."

"What doing?" asked Bert.

"Smoking cigarettes back of the coal house. I've got a whole pack."

"No; I don't smoke," said Bert quietly.

"Bah! You're afraid!" sneered Jim. "Cigarettes can't hurt you.

It's only cigars and pipes that do."

"Yes, I admit I am afraid," said Bert "I'm afraid of getting sick. Besides, I promised my mother I wouldn't smoke until I was twenty-one, and I'm not going to tell a story. Anyhow, I've got an uncle who smokes, and he says cigarettes are worse than a pipe or cigars, and he ought to know."

"Aw, come on!" urged Jim.

"No," said Bert firmly, and he would not go. Jim went off with Danny and some of the other boys, and they were laughing among themselves. Bert felt that they were laughing at him, but he did not mind.

There was to be an examination of the school by some of the members of the Board of Education late that afternoon, and, directly after recess, Mr. Tetlow went to each room to tell the pupils and teachers to get ready for it, and to put certain work on the blackboards, so it could be seen.

When the princ.i.p.al got to the room where Danny Rugg and his particular chums sat, Mr Tetlow, sniffing the air suspiciously, said:

"I smell smoke!"

"I have been noticing it, too," said the lady teacher. "Perhaps the furnace does not work properly."

"It isn't that kind of smoke," went on Mr. Tetlow. "It is tobacco smoke. Have any of you boys been smoking during recess?" he asked sternly, looking across the room.

No one answered. Danny, Jim, and some of the others seemed to be studying their geography lessons very hard.

"I just want to say a word about cigarette smoking," went on Mr. Tetlow, "for that is usually how a boy begins. Of smoking in general, when a boy gets to be a man, I have nothing to say. Some say it is injurious, and others not, in moderation. But there can be no doubt that for a growing boy to smoke is very harmful. Again I ask if anyone here has been smoking?"

No one replied. The guilty boys bent deep over their books and did not look up.

"Well, I am sure someone here has," said Mr. Tetlow. "I can smell it plainly." He walked down the aisles, looking sharply from one boy to another. If he was sure who were the guilty ones he gave no sign. "And I want to add," said Mr. Tetlow, "that not only is cigarette smoking harmful to the smoker, but it is dangerous. Many fires have been caused in that way. If I find out who of my pupils have been smoking around the school they will be severely punished."

CHAPTER XVII

THE FIRST SNOW

There was considerable talk among the boys in Danny's room after Mr. Tetlow departed. And it was noticed that Danny and some of his particular friends looked around with rather frightened faces, over their shoulders, as they talked among themselves. What they said could not be heard, for they spoke in whispers.

"I hope you weren't one of those boys, Bert," said Nan, as she pa.s.sed her brother on the way home from school that afternoon. "If you were--"

"You needn't worry," he said, with a smile. "I'm not ready to smoke yet."

"Nor ever, I hope," said Nan, as she turned up her little nose.

"It--it smells so."

Nothing more was heard of the smoking matter for several days, and it was about forgotten, when something else came to claim the attention of the Bobbsey twins and their friends.