result of this outburst Sube was compelled to copy the word
_thirty_ two hundred times to impress on his memory the correct way to
spell it.

Sube's father was late for supper. He was very late; and he came in
drenched to the skin. With him came Dr. Richards, also drenched.

"Where _have_ you been!" cried Mrs. Cane. "You've caught your death of
cold, I'm sure--"

"Oh, I've taken care of that!" was the doctor's cheery reply. "We
stopped in my office and took a little--preventive."

"But where have you been?" persisted she.

"Where haven't we been!" exclaimed the doctor with an irrepressible
chuckle at the innocent face of Sube. "In the first place I was in the
barber shop being shaved, when a telephone message came that a man had
been terribly injured by falling into a threshing machine out at the
Shepperd farm."

The doctor cast a sly glance at Sube, and noting the boy's complete
immersion in his magazine, winked slyly at his father and went on.

"I took Sam along with me for the ride--and it was _some_ ride! It began
to pour just after we started and the trip was simply one big mudhole
after another; and when we reached the Shepperd farm and asked about the
accident they laughed us out of the house! They wanted to know what we
expected them to be threshing in the merry month of May!"

Shouts of laughter from Mr. Cane and the doctor stopped the recital for
a time.

"Do tell the rest," urged Mrs. Cane, "so I can laugh too."

"Well," the doctor resumed, wiping his eyes, "I called up my office, and
the girl said that just about the time I started, Bill Morton's
stenographer called up and warned her to look out for a fake call she
heard somebody send in from Morton's private office."

"Oh! Who could have done such a thing!" gasped Mrs. Cane.

"Bill's stenographer didn't know who it was," replied the doctor,
watching Sube out of the corner of his eye. "He was too quick for her!
She didn't see him!"

Sube straightened up at once and for the first time appeared to take an
interest in the story.

"We had already started!" laughed the doctor uproariously. "And such a
time as we had!"

The doctor's laughter was infectious. Mr. Cane had been chuckling
throughout the account of their adventures and now Mrs. Cane was
beginning.

"The mud was a foot deep!" cried Mr. Cane, taking up the narrative,
"and we had to get out and wade around in it twice while we changed a
tire. And then to top off the adventure the eng