“Aunt Gertrude is coming? Isn’t that great?” exclaimed Joe.
Mrs. Hardy looked at her son suspiciously. The Hardy boys had never been known to evince much enthusiasm over Aunt Gertrude’s visits before. The worthy lady had a habit of regarding them as though they were still in swaddling clothes and she invariably showed a tendency to dictate as to their food, their hours of rising and going to bed, their companions, and their choice of literature. Many a Sunday afternoon she had thrust on them a weighty volume of Pilgrim’s Progress and sat guard over them as they miserably strove to pretend an interest in the allegorical adventures of Bunyan’s hero.
“I didn’t think you cared for Aunt Gertrude,” ventured Mrs. Hardy when she saw that both Frank and Joe were beaming with satisfaction.
“When will she be here?”
“This afternoon, according to her letter. She never gives one a great deal of notice.”
“She couldn’t have come at a better time. For once in her life, Aunt Gertrude will be useful,” Frank declared, and with that, he told his mother of their desire to organize a searching party for the missing chums.
Mrs. Hardy had been deeply concerned over Chet and Biff since their departure from Bayport and now she agreed that a search should indeed be conducted.
“And now that Aunt Gertrude is coming, you won’t be afraid to stay here alone,” Joe pointed out.
Mrs. Hardy smiled. “And you’ll leave me here all alone to the mercies of that managing woman?”
“There’s not much use having us all here. Aunt Gertrude will run things anyway, whether there’s three of us or a hundred.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I shan’t be afraid to stay here as long as Aunt Gertrude is in the house. I imagine any burglar would rather deal with a vicious bulldog. Go ahead on your trip. When do you intend to start?”
“As soon as we can see Tony Prito and the rest of the boys. We want to make a real searching party of it. By the way, when will Aunt Gertrude arrive?”
“On the four o’clock train, I expect.”
“Then we’ll leave at about three o’clock,” declared Frank, with a grin, for the boys’ dislike of their tyrannical aunt was no secret in the Hardy household.
Mrs. Hardy smiled reprovingly, and the lads hustled away in search of Tony and the other boys.
Tony Prito was afire with enthusiasm when they broached the subject to him. A few words with Mr. Prito, and he obtained permission to have the use of the Napoli for as long as would be necessary.
“We’ll start out as soon as we can get ready,” Frank told him. “See if you can get Jerry and Phil to go with you, and we’ll go and look up Perry Robinson. Perhaps he’ll come along with us. We don’t want to lose any time.”
Perry Robinson, more familiarly known as “Slim,” readily agreed to accompany the boys on the search.
“You bet I’ll go,” he declared. “When do we start?”
“Three o’clock, if we can be ready by then. Meet us at the boathouse and bring along some grub.”
“I’ll be there,” promised Slim.
The Hardy boys carried blankets and a small tent down to the boat and stowed them away. Then came cooking utensils and a supply of food sufficient to last them for several days. They would, of course, be able to get supplies at the fishing villages along the coast, but as they had no idea where their search would lead them they were determined to take no chances.
“Thank goodness we’ll be away from here before Aunt Gertrude arrives,” chuckled Frank, as the boys were putting on their outing clothes at two o’clock that afternoon.
“She’ll be madder than a wet hen when she finds we’ve escaped her. If there’s anything she likes better than bossing us around and showing us our faults, I don’t know what it is.”
Alas for the best laid plans! Aunt Gertrude must have had some premonition of the truth. She advanced the time of her arrival by a good two hours. The two o’clock train brought her to Bayport, bags, baggage, and Lavinia, the cat. The boys were first apprised of her advent when they heard a taxicab pull up in front of the house. Joe peeped out the window of their room.
“Sweet spirits of nitre! Aunt Gertrude herself!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Let me see!”
Frank rushed to the window in time to see Aunt Gertrude, attired in voluminous garments of a fashion dating back at least a decade, laboriously emerging from the taxicab. She was a large woman with a strident voice, and the Hardy boys could hear her vigorously disputing the amount of the fare. This was a matter of principle with Aunt Gertrude, who always argued with taxi drivers as a matter of course, it being her firm conviction that they were unanimously in a conspiracy to overcharge her and defraud her at all times.
With Lavinia under one arm and a huge umbrella under the other, Aunt Gertrude withered the taxicab driver with a fiery denunciation and, when he helplessly pointed to the meter and declared that figures did not lie, she dropped both cat and umbrella, rummaged about in the manifold recesses of her clothing for a very small purse, produced the exact amount of the fare in silver, counted it out and handed it to the man with the air of one giving alms.
“And, just for your impudence, you shan’t have a tip!” she announced. “Carry my bags up to the house.”
The driver gazed sadly at the silver in his hand, pocketed it and clambered back into the car.
“Carry ’em up yourself!” he advised, slamming the door. The taxi roared away down the street.
Frank chuckled.
“That’s one on Aunt Gertrude!”
But Aunt Gertrude had no intention of carrying the bags up to the house. Suddenly she glared up at the window from which the two boys had been watching the scene.
“You two boys up there!” she shouted. “I see you. Don’t think I can’t see you! Come down here and carry
