New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, Charles Geer Read Free Book Online Page A

The
auctioneer paused in mid-sentence. "What was that, my young friend?"
           
"Five dollars!" Freddy repeated. The auctioneer snickered
indulgently. "Did you hear that, ladies and gennemun?" He laughed.
"We have one of the last of the big spenders with us here today -- one of
America's great natural comedians -- and he offers a paltry five dollars for
this priceless relic of the late great war." He beat a tattoo on the steel
hull of the submarine with his gavel. "Ladies and gennemun!" he cried
in a loud voice, raising his hands high in the air and blowing all his words
out through his nose. "Ladies and gennemun, I tell you what I'm gonna do.
I ordinarily would treat such an offer with the disdain that it deserves. But I
can go along with a gag as well as the next one. And just to indulge our young
friend here - whom I am sure must be the grandson of the late great Oliver
Hardy - I will open the bidding for five dollars!" Again the gavel
descended upon the rusty hull, which was still ringing from the last blow.
"Do I hear ten dollars?"
           
"Four fifty!" came an even squeakier voice from the left of the
crowd.
            The
auctioneer's jaw dropped. "What was that?" he asked incredulously.
            "I
bid four dollars and fifty cents!" said Dinky Poore in a slightly louder
voice. There was a laugh from the crowd.
            The
auctioneer snickered condescendingly again. "I must apologize, ladies and
gennemun," he said, fixing a baleful glare on Dinky Poore, "but I
didn't realize that we were also honored with the presence of the grandson of
Stan Laurel. It isn't every day that you find two jokers in the same
deck!" Sweeping his hat from his head, he made an elaborate bow in the
direction of Dinky. "Are you aware, young man, that I already have a bid
of five dollars?"
           
"That old tub ain't worth five dollars," said Dinky. "I bid four
dollars and fifty cents."
            The
auctioneer clapped his hat back onto his head. "Do I hear ten
dollars?" he shouted, banging his gavel on the hull again.
            "I
think he's right!" said Freddy Muldoon. "I bid four dollars,
even."
           
"Wait a minute!" shouted the auctioneer, pointing his gavel at
Freddy. "You can't pull that on me. You already bid five dollars for this
item."
            "I
changed my mind," said Freddy.
            "Do
I hear seven-fifty?" shouted the auctioneer.
           
"Make it three and a half and I'll take it!" Dinky shouted back,
cupping his hands to his mouth to make himself heard above the laughter of the
crowd.
           
"Three dollars, even!" Freddy hollered.
           
"Two seventy-five!" countered Dinky.
           
"I'll go two fifty, and that's my final offer!" Freddy bellowed.
            The
auctioneer rapped his gavel on the submarine's hull so hard that the head came
flying off. "Sold, sold, sold!" he shouted, pointing the broken
handle at Freddy Muldoon. "Sold for two dollars and fifty cents before you
can open your big mouth again!"
           
"I'll take it!" said Freddy. He marched up and put two dollar bills
down on the auctioneer's table. Then he turned to Dinky Poore. "Can you
lend me fifty cents?"
           
"Sure!" said Dinky, pulling out a handful of small change, and the
crowd roared as he dumped the coins onto the table.
           
"Get this thing out of here before I change my mind!" fumed the
auctioneer.
           
"Right away, sir!" said Freddy and Dinky.
            We
needn't have worried about how we were going to load the sub on Zeke's truck.
There must have been fifty people from the crowd trying to get a handhold on it
to help us ease it onto the truck bed after we got it suspended in the slings
of the traveling crane. We threw a big tarpaulin over it and drove right back
to Mammoth Falls, where we parked it in Zeke's junkyard. We had a lot of work
to do on it before we could take it to our hideout, because the first thing we
had to do was get it in condition