nmolested.

"'The people are all fools here,' he said.

"'It would be too bad to harm such simple people,' said his comrades.

"'Fools all,' said the sheriff.

"'Fools all,' said the horsemen.

"'Let us go back,' said the sheriff, 'and report to the king that the
people in Gotham are fools.'

"'Right,' said the men.

"So they returned to the king, and reported that Gotham was a place of
fools. And from these circumstances, or incidents like these, if I may
believe an old tale, the men of that place were called, in derision,
'The Wise Men of Gotham,' from that day."

CHAPTER IX.

A SERIES OF MEMORABLE VISITS.

Tommy goes hunting.--"Peveril of the Peak."--The Boy at the
Wheel.--Leamington.--Stratford-on-Avon.--Shakspeare's Birthplace,
Garden, and Tomb.--Queer Relics.--Kenilworth.--Ernest's Album of
Leaves and Flowers.--Warwick Castle.--The Mighty Guy.--The Antique
Portress.

Master Lewis gave the boys a couple of days in Nottingham to enjoy
themselves as they liked.

Tommy Toby went _hunting_.

"I want to be able to tell people," he said, "that I have hunted in
Sherwood Forest, the royal hunting-ground of English kings."

"In midsummer?" asked Master Lewis. "I fancy if you were to use a gun
in the Forest of Sherwood, you might make a longer vacation abroad
than you intended."

"I do not intend to use a gun. I have bought me a bow and some
arrows."

"Let me see them," said Master Lewis. "They look very harmless,
certainly." Master Lewis seemed to hesitate about making further
objections.

Just what came of Tommy's hunting we cannot state at this stage of our
narrative. He left the boys at the hotel, bow and arrows in hand, and
saying as a word of parting,--

"'Let's go to the wood, said Richard to Robin.'"

He evidently went outside of the city into the wooded district, that
was a part of old Sherwood Forest. When Master Lewis found that he had
really gone out of the place he looked troubled, and said:--

"I should have prevented it."

Tommy returned late on the evening of the same day after a ten hours'
absence. He certainly looked like a modern hunter, for he was empty
handed, and his clothes were in a very disarranged condition.

"Where are your bow and arrows?" asked Frank.

"I shall tell you nothing at all about it, now," said Tommy. "It is my
own secret."

"Then you have two secrets," said Frank, referring to the fact that
Tommy had been made custodian of the se