"Well, spill the rest of it," groaned Jimmy as he shifted from one side to the other in the hope of relieving the pain that gnawed at his vitals. "What's the big idea?"

"I was wondering," said Bob, sitting up and growing excited as his vague plan began to take shape, "if we couldn't get some of these poor folks together and give 'em the time of their lives."

The boys stared at him and Herb shook his head sorrowfully.

"Gone plain loco," he explained to the other boys, with a significant tap on his forehead. "They say life's pretty hard inside that asylum, too."

"Loco, nothing!" cried Joe, beginning to understand Bob's idea and growing excited in his turn. "You're the one that's loco, you poor fish, only you haven't sense enough to know it. Where would we give this entertainment, Bob? At your house?" he asked, turning to his chum while Herb grinned at the suffering Jimmy.

"Now, they've both got it," he said dolefully.

"Well, I wish 'em joy of it," grumbled Jimmy.

"Why, I thought of that at first," Bob said in reply to Joe's question. "Only with our instruments we have to use the ear pieces so that only a few could listen at a time."

"That would be pretty slow for the rest of them," Joe finished understandingly.

Bob nodded eagerly.

"Sure thing," he said, sitting up and flinging the hair back out of his eyes. "I knew you'd catch the idea, Joe."

"Say, I know what we'll do," broke in Herb excitedly. "How about taking all these poor lame ducks to Doctor Dale's house. He has a horn attachment--"

"And they could all hear the concert at once! Hooray!" cried Jimmy, momentarily forgetting his pain in excitement. "You've got a pretty good head piece after all, Bob."

"Yes, and a minute ago you were laughing at me," said Bob, aggrieved.

"Well, say," cried Joe, who was ever a boy of action, "what's the matter with our getting busy on this right away? Let's go and see Doctor Dale--"

"What's your big rush?" Jimmy protested feebly, appalled by the prospect of immediate action. "There's a lot of things we don't know about this business yet."

"Sure, sit down and talk it over," urged Herb placatingly. "No use gettin' all worked up over this thing, you know. Say," he added, with a sudden light in his, eye, "that reminds me of a joke I heard."

But a roar of protest from the other boys drowned his voice.

"Gag him, some one, can't you?" Joe's voice was heard above the uproar. "The last joke he tried to work off on us was so old it had false teeth."

"Gee," cried Herb, finally released and disgruntled. "It's plain to be seen real humor is wasted on this gang."

The boys let it go at that and eagerly plunged into a discussion of the proposed concert.

"Who do we know that we can invite?" Joe asked practically. "The only 'shut in' I know is poor old Joel Banks. He's a fine old boy--went all through the Civil War with colors flying. He's awfully old now, and so crippled with rheumatism he can't leave the house."

"Fine!" crowed Herb irrepressibly. "Here's the first of our lame lucks."

"Joel Banks isn't any lame duck! I'll have you know that right now,"

cried Joe hotly. "He's one of the finest old gentlemen you ever want to see, and a hero at that. My dad says he would take his hat off to him any day in the week."

"All right, all right," said Herb quickly. "Don't go off the handle.

I didn't know you were so strong for the old boy. Who's next on the list?" he asked, turning to Bob.

"Why," said Bob uncertainly, "I know quite a few poor kids who were crippled in that infantile paralysis epidemic--"

"Sure, so do I," broke in Jimmy, interested. "How about little d.i.c.k Winters and his sister?"

"Fine!" cried Bob. "And I know a couple more I could pick up. Now let's see! That makes--Gee, how many is it?"

"About five;" Joe figured for him. "That's enough, isn't it."

"Y-yes," said Bob doubtfully. "Only your friend, the old war veteran, might not like to be squeezed in with a lot of kids, that way."

"I can fix that easily," said Jimmy, importantly. "What's the matter with asking Aunty Bixby?"

"Who's she?" asked Bob, with interest.

"She's an old lady, a sort of spinster, I guess," Jimmy explained.

"She lives all by herself, and I guess she gets kind of lonesome sometimes. She's kind of deaf, though," he added doubtfully.

"Deaf!" repeated Bob, with a frown. "How can she listen to radio then, if she's deaf?"

"Oh, she has a trumpet," Jimmy hastened to explain. "She sticks it in her ear like this," and he made a gesture with his hands at the same time distorting his face into such a comical imitation of a deaf person doing his best to listen that the other boys shouted with laughter. "Oh, she can hear, all right," Jimmy finished confidently.

"Well, then, that makes six," said Bob briskly. "Now we've got to make up our minds how we are going to get them to Doctor Dale's house."

"Maybe dad will let me take the big car," said Joe, his eyes shining with the sheer daring of the thought. "He is so crazy about radio himself these days that he will pretty nearly stand on his head to help anybody who takes an interest in it."

"I guess all our dads are bricks about radio," declared Jimmy stoutly.

"Mine said the other night he was mighty glad to have a youngster that had sense enough to pick out something really good to waste his time on."

"Waste, is right," said Herb and then stared upward through the trees as Jimmy's indignant stare was fixed upon him.

"Stop sc.r.a.pping, fellows," said Bob, jumping to his feet and shaking off some of the twigs and damp earth that stuck to him. "Let's get busy and find Doctor Dale. If he won't let us have his house then this thing is all off."

"Swell chance, his not letting us have his house," said Jimmy, getting painfully to his feet and shaking himself for all the world like a fat puppy dog. "He's the greatest sport going."

"He sure is," Bob agreed as they swung off at a great pace through the woods. "If it hadn't been for him we probably wouldn't have known anything about radio."

For a while they were quiet, their minds busy with plans for perfecting their own radio outfits, their imaginations athrill with antic.i.p.ation of the wonders they were yet to perform.

Then Herb suddenly broke into their dreams with a very practical question.

"Boys, I just happened to think--"

"'Happened' is right," murmured Jimmy, with a grin.

"Even if Joe does get his dad's car," Herb went on, unmoved, "it's only a seven pa.s.senger, and there will be ten of us, counting the lame ducks."

"Oh, that'll be all right," said Bob confidently. "We'll hire a jitney of some sort down at the livery."