CHAPTER VII 

THE ARRIVAL OF SONGBIRD 

"So you've made some enemies as well as some friends, eh?" remarked Songbird Powell, after he had been registered, taken up to his room, and had listened to what the Rover boys had to tell. "No use of talking, it doesn't take you fellows long to stir things up!" 

"You said you had a surprise for us, Songbird," returned Tom. "I'm dying by inches to know what it is." 

"Maybe it's a new poem," put in Sam with a grimace at his brothers. 

"I've got a poem--several of them, in fact," answered Songbird, "but I didn't have those in mind when I spoke. Who do you suppose I met yesterday morning, in Ithaca, while I was waiting for the train?" 

"Dora Stanhope and the Lanings," answered Tom promptly. 

"No. Tad Sobber." 

"Tad Sobber!" exclaimed the Rover boys in concert. 

"Songbird, are you sure of it?" demanded Dick. 

"Sure? Wasn't I talking to him!" 

"But--but--I thought he was lost in that hurricane, when the _Josephine_ was wrecked." 

"No. It seems he escaped to a vessel bound for England; but his uncle, Sid Merrick, was lost, and so were most of the others. Sobber just got back from England--came in on one of the ocean liners, so he told me." 

"How did he act?" asked Tom. 

"Where was he going?" added Sam. 

"Did he seem to have any money?" came from Dick. 

All of the Rovers were intensely interested, and showed it plainly. 

"Say, one question at a time, please!" cried Songbird, "You put me in mind of a song I once wrote about a little boy: 
about?
song I once wrote about a little boy: