“Why, hello, Pep!” exclaimed Frank in joyful surprise, jumping up from the table and greeting the missing chum with a hearty handshake.

“Hold on—go a little easy on that hand,” spoke the unexpected guest. “It’s the one I hurt in that automobile accident, you know, and not quite as strong as it used to be.”

“What automobile accident?” inquired Frank in surprise.

“Oh, that’s so,” broke in Randy quickly—“Frank has just got back from the city and hasn’t heard of it yet. We didn’t expect you so soon. You wrote us yesterday you wouldn’t leave Brenton until Saturday.”

“Humph! Had to,” said Pep with a wry grimace.

“How is that?”

“Fired,” explained Pep tersely, and looking as if he had not enjoyed the experience one bit. “Say, don’t bother me now about it. I’m hungry as a bear, and had to walk eight miles to get here before dark, and I’ll feel better natured when I’ve had something to eat and a little rest.”

Ben Jolly arched his eyebrows in an inquiring way and Randy looked Pep over sharply. Jolly had just returned from Fairlands that morning, and Randy had heard from Pep by mail only twice during his sojourn at the Tyson home at Brenton. From all he had learned and seen during his brief visit there, Randy had been led to believe that Pep would return with waving colors. He would not only be mended up, as Randy had reason to figure it out, but would have a comfortable sum of money representing lost time.

Pep, however, did not look like a favorite of fortune. He used both hands with equal celerity in dispatching the meal, and his injured wrist seemed to give him no inconvenience or pain. His face was glum, however, and when he spoke of being “fired” Randy knew that something was up.

“Tell us about this accident of yours, Pep,” urged Frank as all hands got over the first promptings of appetite.

“Randy will,” snapped Pep.

Randy was agreeable to the suggestion. He was glad to descend on the heroism of his chum, and dwelt somewhat upon the bravery of Pep in risking his life for the little child in the baby carriage. Randy led the course of the narrative to his visit to Brenton, the peculiar situation in which he found Pep, and detailed the contents of the two letters he had received from their absent partner.

“Well, Pep,” hailed Frank heartily, at the end of the story. “I suppose you’ve turned out an adopted son or great favorite with this Mr. Tyson.”

Pep had just finished a second helping of Jolly’s famous rice pudding and was ready to talk now.

“Oh, yes, I have! See me!” he retorted in a scornful and disgusted way. “Say, the next fellow who plays me for an invalid will be a good one, I tell you. It’s all right up to where Randy left me in the arms of luxury at the Tyson residence. Yes, it was all right for two days after that. Then I got into my usual trim—restless. Of course I couldn’t work with my bad arm, but it didn’t bother me a bit. I told Mr. Tyson so. He spoke to that old fogy surgeon of his and after a regular battle we came to terms.”

“What terms, Pep?” inquired Frank.

“I wanted something to do. I was dead sick of hanging around doing nothing. It seems that Mr. Tyson runs a broker’s office in Brenton. It’s a branch of a big Wall Street concern in New York City. They do some business, too, and he hires a lot of clerks. Well, the surgeon said that as long as I didn’t use my bad arm it was all right, so old Tyson takes me down to the office. First day he put me at the information desk. Then the boy who held that position regularly came back and he set me at one of the telephones.”

“What doing, Pep?” inquired Jolly.

“Taking quotations and orders on the long distance. The ’phone was arranged on a standard and I didn’t have to handle it at all. I had a pad of paper at my side. All I had to do was to write out the quotations, or orders. Then I would touch an electric bell and a boy would take them to the manager.”

“Sort of stock exchange business; eh?” propounded Jolly.

“Yes, that way,” assented Pep. “The first day I got through grandly. Old Tyson told me I had the making of a smart man in me and advised me to cut away from the movies and become a second Vanderbilt. They kept me at the ’phone yesterday, too. It’s too bad they did,” added Pep grievously. “I reckon they think so now.”

“Explain, Pep,” urged the curious Randy.

“Well, about two o’clock in the afternoon there was a rush of business. Everybody in the office was busy. I heard the manager say that it looked like a regular Black Friday, whatever that was, the way stocks and bonds were being juggled. Right when everything was going at lightning speed and the office was in a turmoil, long distance says: ‘Buy for Vandamann account at twenty’—and then there was a hiss and a jangle—crossed wires—see?”

Pep’s engrossed auditors nodded silently, eager to hear the remainder of his story.

“Then I got the balance of the order—as I supposed—‘one thousand shares Keystone Central.’ Orders came piling up and I had all I could do to write them down. ‘Buy one thousand Keystone Central at twenty’ went to the manager with the rest. I thought no more of it until this morning. I was at my ’phone thinking of how I’d be home with the rest of you Saturday, when the manager, mad as a hornet, came to me. ‘You see Mr. Tyson just as quick as you can,’ he snapped at me, and I did. Mr. Tyson had just found out that I had mixed orders. I talked about crossed wire, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. ‘The idea of loading us down with that bustling stock at twenty, when it was offered on the exchange at three cents yesterday!’ he howled. ‘Here get out of here and stay out of here. And here, you’ve cost a pretty penny, and you can take that stock for your pay.’ And with that,” concluded Pep, “he hurled this package at me, and I’m a bloated bondholder.”

Pep drew a little package of green and yellow documents from his pocket. He flung them on the table in a disgruntled way. Ben Jolly picked them up and looked them over.

“Heard of the Keystone Central,” he observed—“lot of watered stock and new people trying to squeeze out the old shareholders. Maybe a few dollars in these, Pep.”

But the disgusted Pep waved documents and remark away with disdain.

“Burn ’em up; throw ’em away—don’t care what you do with them,” he declared. “I am sick of the whole business. I want to forget how mean money makes a millionaire, and just get back into the gladness and bustle of the old motion picture proposition.”

“All right, Pep,” said Jolly blandly, pocketing the papers. “I’ll just take care of the documents for you. They may bob up in a new way some time; you never can tell.”

“What about moving the outfit down from Fairlands, Mr. Jolly?” here interrupted Frank.

“That’s so—my report is due; isn’t it? Why, I’ve arranged for everything. Boxed up and crated what there was in good shape, and expect they’ll arrive to-morrow or the next day.”

“By rail, of course?”

“Oh, yes. It’s a long distance, there’s a lot of bad roads and hills to climb, and freight was the only way. I left the chairs. It would cost as much to move them as they were worth.”

“We had better stock up new as to the seating feature,” said Frank, “seeing that we need double what we had at Fairlands. Well, boys, now to show you what I have accomplished.”

Frank had done so much that he held their fascinated attention unbroken for well nigh an hour. Jolly smiled and nodded his approval as Frank told in detail of his negotiations with the supply houses in the city. Pep’s eyes snapped with anticipation of the brilliant way in which the new Wonderland was going to open.

“It looks all smooth sailing; doesn’t it now?” Randy submitted in his optimistic way.

“How soon will we open?” pressed the eager Pep.

“I should think we would be all ready within a week or ten days.”

“Oh, pshaw! have to wait that long?” mourned Pep.

“You want things right; don’t you?” asked Randy.

“Oh, of course, of course,” responded Pep, “only every day counts. Before we know it someone else will break in and get all the cream off the proposition.”

“No, no, friend Pep,” laughed Ben Jolly confidently. “We’ve got too good a start in the movies race at Seaside Park, and we’re bound to win.”