f a
challenge in his voice. "You always have the last word?"

"Cub's the dictator of our outfit, and we do the work, that's why,"
declared Hal Stone. "We always have to listen to him, you know that, Bud.
So what's the use o' kickin'?"

"Oh, I'm not kickin'," Bud replied. "It's no use. Cub 'u'd drown us out
with his voice if we hollered. You know you made 'im admit once that
noise was the only thing that 'u'd convince him."

"You c'n change that now and call it static instead of noise since we've
all become radio experts," smirked Cub with characteristic superiority.

"Ha, ha," laughed Bud.

"Tee-hee," tittered Hal.

By the way, it was from this peculiar manner of laugh, that Hal got his
nickname, Tee-hee. Cub's given name was Robert, shortened sometimes to
Bob and Bud's was Roy. Cub and Bud were always known by their nicknames,
but Hal was addressed as Tee-hee only on fitting or intermittent
occasions.

The three boys were seated in Cub's room at the Perry home, one of the
largest and most interesting samples of domestic architecture in the City
of Oswego, on the shore of Lake Ontario. Cub was a rich man's son, but he
was constitutionally, almost grotesquely, democratic. There was nothing
that would make him angrier, to all appearance at least, than open
reference in conversation to the wealth of his father. For such offense
he was ever ready to "take off the head" of the offender. However, once
in a while one of the bolder of his friends would beard the lion in his
den more or less successfully. But it was necessary for such venturesome
person to be ever in command of ready wit in order to emerge with a whole
skin, figuratively speaking, and Bud and Tee-hee were the real leaders of
this victorious few. That was the reason why they were chums of Cub.

The fact of the matter, to be perfectly frank, was that Cub was a good
deal of an actor. Whether he was conscious of this fact we will not
venture to say. He is the only one who knows, and we have never broached
the subject to him. The average person on first making his acquaintance
doubtless would set him down as a very domineering youth; some might even
call him a bully, but they would change their minds eventually if the
acquaintance continued. Perhaps the best way one could judge Cub, without
being Cub himself, would be to characterize him as being fond of playing
the bully just for fun. Indeed, it is quite probable that Cub carried a
perpetual laugh in his sl