The Tower Treasure quotes

“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 nearby village for their father.

“Over a period of three years. Well, what color is his hair?”

Frank looked blankly at Joe.

“I think it’s black.”

“Don’t say you didn’t hear me?” roared the chauffeur. “I sounded my horn fifty times.”

“Sure, I heard a horn,” admitted Billers. “But,” he added triumphantly, “I didn’t see no car.”

“Are you blind?” asked Riley. “There’s the car.”

She was at one time a blonde, but she had endeavored to retain her youth by dyeing her hair, with the result that it was now a sort of dusty black. Chet Morton was fond of saying that

“Miss Applegate used to be a blonde but she dyed.”

She dressed in all colors of the rainbow, and her infrequent excursions into Bayport stores, when she would order the clerks about like so many soldiers, shouting at them in her high, cracked voice, had become historic on account of the wild and colorful garments …

“Perhaps it’s my own business.”

“Police business is everybody’s business,” declared Collig judicially.

“What we want to know is—did you find any clues?”

“I think—I think—” Detective Smuff groped for an expression that would encompass the magnitude of the offence, “I think Mr. Hardy is guilty of obstructin’ the cause of justice,” he said grandly.

“Obstructing fiddlesticks!” said Mr. Hardy. “I’m minding my own business. Which is more than some police officers seem capable of doing.”

“The trouble with you, Mr. Hardy,” he said, “is that you won’t cooperate. If you cooperated a little more, we would all be farther ahead. There ain’t any cooperation at all.

“Coward!” said the chief.

“I’d do it myself, only it wouldn’t be right, seein’ I’m your superior officer. Bad for discipline.”

The worthy officers stared at the package on the fruit stand counter, while Rocco danced with impatience. Neither Collig nor Smuff dared approach closer, but they realized something must be done.

“Mebbe she blowa him all to da bits!” suggested Rocco fearfully.

“He has insurance,” consoled the chief.

“We’ll give him a good funeral,” observed Smuff.

Their father glanced at them shrewdly.

“Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,” he said.

And then, as the boys hastened out of the den, he called after them: “Also, you might remember the old proverb that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

“These are Mr. Hardy’s boys,” explained Hurd Applegate. “He is the big detective, you know.”

“All detectives,” said Miss Applegate, “are nosey. Always pryin’ into other people’s affairs.”

“We’re just trying to help you,” put in Joe politely.

In all the talk and excitement that followed the clearing up of the Tower mystery, the Hardy boys received no compliment that they treasured so much as that remark of Adelia Applegate’s.

“Well,” said Chief Collig, scratching his head, “I’ll be bumped!”

“I’ll be bumped, too,” declared Smuff.