Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
"After the help we gave dad on that forgery case I guess he'll begin to think we could be detectives when we grow up." "Why shouldn't we? Isn't he one of the most famous detectives in the country? And aren't we his sons? If the profession was good enough for him to follow it should be good enough for us." Two bright-eyed boys on motorcycles were speeding along a shore road in the sunshine of a morning in spring. It was Saturday and they were enjoying a holiday from the Bayport high school. The day was ideal for a motorcycle trip and the lads were combining business with pleasure by going on an errand to a near-by village for their father. The older of the two boys was a tall, dark youth, about sixteen years of age. His name was Frank Hardy. The other boy, his companion on the motorcycle trip, was his brother Joe, a year younger. While there was a certain resemblance between the two lads, chiefly in the firm yet good-humored expression of their mouths, in some respects they differed greatly in appearance. While Frank was dark, with straight, black hair and brown eyes, his brother was pink-cheeked, with fair, curly hair and blue eyes. These were the Hardy boys, sons of Fenton Hardy, an internationally famous detective who had made a name for himself in the years he had spent on the New York police force and who was now, at the age of forty, handling his own practice. The Hardy family lived in Bayport, a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, located on Barmet Bay, three miles in from the Atlantic, and here the Hardy boys attended high school and dreamed of the days when they, too, should be detectives like their father. As they sped along the narrow shore road, with the waves breaking on the rocks far below, they discussed their chances of winning over their parents to agreement with their ambition to follow in the footsteps of their father. Like most boys, they speculated frequently on the occupation they should follow when they grew up, and it had always seemed to them that nothing offered so many possibilities of adventure The Speed Demon 3 and excitement as the career of a detective. "But whenever we mention it to dad he just laughs at us," said Joe Hardy. "Tells us to wait until we're through school and then we can think about being detectives." "Well, at least he's more encouraging than mother," remarked Frank. "She comes out plump and plain and says she wants one of us to be a doctor and the other a lawyer." "What a fine lawyer either of us would make I" sniffed Joe. "Or a doctor, either I We were both cut out to be detectives and dad knows it." "As I was saying, the help we gave him in that forgery case proves it. He didn't say much, but I'll bet he's been thinking a lot." "Of course we didn't actually do very much in that case," Joe pointed out. "But we suggested something that led to a clue, didn't we? That's as much a part of detective work as anything else. Dad himself ad mitted he would never have thought of examin ing the city tax receipts for that forged signa ture. It was just a lucky idea on our part, but it proved to him that we can use our heads for something more than to hang our hats on." "Oh, I guess he's convinced all right. Once we get out of school he'll probably give his permission. Why, this is a good sign right now, Isn't it? He asked us to deliver these papers I The Tower Treasure for him in Willowville. He's letting us help him." "I'd rather get in on a real, good mystery,'*' said Frank. "It's all right to help dad, but if there's no more excitement in it than delivering papers I'd rather start in studying to be a lawyer and be done with it." "Never mind, Frank," comforted his brother. "We may get a mystery all of our own to solve some day." "If we do we'll show that Fenton Hardy's «ons are worthy of his name. Oh boy, but what wouldn't I give to be as famous as dad! Why, some of the biggest cases in the country are turned over to him. That forgery case, for instance. Fifty thousand dollars had been stolen right from under the noses of the city officials and all the auditors and city detectives and private detectives they called in had to admit that it was too deep for them." "Then they called in dad and he cleared it up in three days. Once he got suspicious of that slick bookkeeper whom nobody had been suspecting at all, it was all over but the shouting. Got a confession out of him and everything." "It was smooth work. I'm glad our suggestion helped him. The case certainly got a lot of attention in the papers." "And here we are," said Joe, "plugging along the shore road on a measly little errand The Speed Demon $ to deliver some legal papers at Willowville. I'd rather be on the track of some diamond thieves or smugglers-or something." , "Well, we have to be satisfied, I suppose,*y replied Frank, leaning farther over the handlebars. "Perhaps dad may give us a chance on a real case some time." "Some time! I want to be on a real case now!" The motorcycles roared along the narrow road that skirted the bay. An embankment of tumbled rocks and boulders sloped steeply to the water below, and on the other side of the road was a steep cliff. The roadway itself was narrow, although it was wide enough to permit two cars to meet and pass, and it wound about in frequent curves and turnings. It was a road that was not often traveled, for Willowville was only a small village and this shore road was an offshoot of the main highways to the north and the west. The Hardy boys dropped their discussion of the probability that some day they would be come detectives, and for a while they rode on in silence, occupied with the difficulties of keeping to the road. For the road at this point was dangerous, very rough and rutty, and it sloped sharply upward so that the embankment leading to the ocean far below became steeper anol steeper. <? The Tower Treasure **I shouldn't want to go over the edge aroTmfl here," remarked Frank, as he glanced down the mgged slope. "It's a hundred-foot drop. You'd be smashed to pieces before you ever hit the! shore." "I'll say! It's best to stay in close to the cliff. These curves are bad medicine." The motorcycles took the next curve neatly, and then the boys confronted a long, steep slope. The rocky cliffs frowned on one side, and the embankment jutted far down to the tumbling waves below, so that the road was a mere ribbon before them. "Once we get to the top of the hill well be all right. It's all smooth sailing from there to Willowville," remarked Frank, as the motorcycles commenced the climb. >> >> And I was correct about the Blarney Castle, which you did not >> acknowledge as any man would. |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
If I wanted to read a book, I'd join some girlie group like Ophra.
God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/ "Shirley U. Jeste" <dontcallmeshirley@anytime.bud> wrote in message news:Hcfli.108003$NV3.60419@pd7urf2no... ><snip wasted bandwidth> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
If I wanted to read a book, I'd join some girlie group like Ophra.
God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/ "Shirley U. Jeste" <dontcallmeshirley@anytime.bud> wrote in message news:Hcfli.108003$NV3.60419@pd7urf2no... ><snip wasted bandwidth> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
If I wanted to read a book, I'd join some girlie group like Ophra.
God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/ "Shirley U. Jeste" <dontcallmeshirley@anytime.bud> wrote in message news:Hcfli.108003$NV3.60419@pd7urf2no... ><snip wasted bandwidth> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
If I wanted to read a book, I'd join some girlie group like Ophra.
God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/ "Shirley U. Jeste" <dontcallmeshirley@anytime.bud> wrote in message news:Hcfli.108003$NV3.60419@pd7urf2no... ><snip wasted bandwidth> -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
RoyJ wrote:
> Getting AOL off your computer is harder than getting rid of most trojans! > > Scott in Baltimore wrote: >>> AOL is for rookies. >> >> >> Friends don't let friends use AOL! It's getting easier... AOL to pay $3M, reform cancel policies http://tinyurl.com/28bupe Steve |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
RoyJ wrote:
> Getting AOL off your computer is harder than getting rid of most trojans! > > Scott in Baltimore wrote: >>> AOL is for rookies. >> >> >> Friends don't let friends use AOL! It's getting easier... AOL to pay $3M, reform cancel policies http://tinyurl.com/28bupe Steve |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
RoyJ wrote:
> Getting AOL off your computer is harder than getting rid of most trojans! > > Scott in Baltimore wrote: >>> AOL is for rookies. >> >> >> Friends don't let friends use AOL! It's getting easier... AOL to pay $3M, reform cancel policies http://tinyurl.com/28bupe Steve |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
RoyJ wrote:
> Getting AOL off your computer is harder than getting rid of most trojans! > > Scott in Baltimore wrote: >>> AOL is for rookies. >> >> >> Friends don't let friends use AOL! It's getting easier... AOL to pay $3M, reform cancel policies http://tinyurl.com/28bupe Steve |
Re: My comment about AOL e-mail
> If I wanted to read a book, I'd join some girlie group like Ophra. > God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O > mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/ Then do it; you desperately need some education. Meanwhile, this will do, it's at a 4th grade level, not too far beyond your ability: THE HOUSE ON THE CLIFF by FRANKLIN W. DIXON No. 2 in the Hardy Boys series "Where do we go from here?" he called out to the others. The two remaining motorcycles came to a stop and the drivers mopped their brows while the two other boys dismounted, glad of the chance to stretch their legs. One of the cyclists, a boy of fifteen, fair, with light, curly hair, was Joe Hardy, a brother of Frank's, and the other lad was Chet Morton, a chum of the Hardy boys. The other youths were Jerry Gilroy and "Biff" Hooper, typical, healthy American lads of high school age. "You're the leader," said Joe to his brother. "We'11 follow you." "I'd rather have it settled. We've started out without any particular place to go. There's not much fun just riding around the countryside." "I don't much care where we go, as long as we keep on going," said Jerry. "We get a breeze as long as we're traveling, but the mra-nte we stop I begin to sweat." Chet Morton gazed along the shore road. "I'll tell you what we can do," he said suddenly. " Let's go and visit the haunted house." "Polucca's place?" •The Haunted House 3 "Sure. We've never been out therw." "I've passed it," Frank said. "But I didn't go very close to the place, I'll tell you." Jerry Gilroy, who was a newcomer to Bayport, looked puzzled. "Where is Polucca's place?" "You can see it from here. Look," said Chet, taking him by the arm and bringing him over to the side of the road. "See where the shore road dips, away out near the end of Barmet Bay. Do you see that cliff?" "Yes. There's a stone house at the top." "Well, that's Polucca's place." "Who is Polucca?" "Who was Polucca, you mean," interjected Frank. "He used to live there. But he was murdered." "And that's why the place is supposed to be haunted?" "Reason enough, isn't it?" said Biff Hooper. "I don't believe in ghosts, but I'll tell the world there are some funny stories going around about that house ever since Polucca was killed." "He must have been a strange fellow, anyway," commented Jerry, "to build a house in such a place as that." Indeed, the Polucca place had been built on an unusual site. High above the waters of the bay it stood, built close to the edge of a rocky 4 The House on the Cliff and inhospitable cliff. It was some distance back from the road, and there was no other house within miles. The boys had traveled a little more than three miles since leaving Bayport, and the Polucca place was at least five miles away. It could hardly have been seen, had it not been for its prominent position on top of the cliff, silhouetted clearly against the sky. "He was a strange fellow," Frank observed. "No one knew very much about him. He didn't welcome visitors. In fact, he always kept a couple of vicious dogs around the place, so nobody cared to hang around there if they weren't invited." "He was a miser," came from Joe Hart/. "He may have been. At least that was the theory. Everybody said Polucca had a lot of money, but after his death there wasn't a nickel found in the house." "Felix Polucca always said he wouldn't trust the banks," put in Biff Hooper. "But if he had any money I don't know where he made it, for he didn't work at anything and he mighty seldom came into the city." "Perhaps he inherited it," Jerry suggested. "Maybe. He must have had money at some time, to build that house. It's a great, rambling stone place that must have cost thousands." 'The Haunted House 5 "Is anybody living there now?"* The others shook their heads. "No one has lived there since the murder and I don't think any one ever will," said Frank Hardy. "The house is too far out of the way, for one thing, and then-the stories that have been going around-" "Well, I won't say I believe any place is haunted, but the Polucca place is certainly strange. There have been queer lights seen there at night. On stormy nights, particularly. And once a motorist had a breakdown near there, so he went up to the house for help. He didn't know anything about the history of the place. He got the scare of his life!" "What happened?" "He decided when he went into the front yard that the place was deserted, and he was just going to turn away when he saw an old man standing at one of the upper windows, looking at him. He called out, and the old man went away, and although the motorist hunted all through the house he didn't find any trace of the old chap. So he left that place as quickly as he could." "I don't blame him," remarked Jerry. "But the house sounds interesting. I'm game to visit it." "So am I!" declared the others. '' Lead on!" laughed Chet. " It '11 be a brave 6 llie House on the Cliff ghost that will tackle the whole five of us." Jerry clambered on behind Chet, and Biff mounted Joe's motorcycle. The machines roared, and the little cavalcade started on its way down the shore road toward the house on the cliff. Instead of being an aimless trip, the outing had now assumed all the aspects of an adventure. With the exception of Jerry, the boys had all passed by the Polucca place at one time or another, but none had ever ventured off the main road to explore the deserted place. The lane leading into the Polucca grounds, never kept in good repair even during the owner's lifetime, was now almost indiscernible and was overgrown with weeds and bushes. The house itself was hidden from the roadway by trees. [to be continued...] |
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:29 PM. |
© 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands