Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/297

 "I think so, too," said Tom. "I don't care for their old canoe club, but I should really like to see the Toxophilites go to pieces. I'd see Joe Wayring happy before he should come into this club with my vote."

If Tom Bigden could have stepped across the street and up the stairs that led to the neatly furnished armory and drill-room in which the Toxophilites were at that moment sitting down to an oyster supper that some of the new members had provided for them, he would, perhaps, have been very much disappointed to discover that the organization he hated so cordially because he could not get into it, was not only in no danger of falling to pieces, but that it was stronger than it had ever been before. The vacancies occasioned by the resignation of Frank Noble and his friends, had been promptly filled by good fellows, who had waited long and patiently for an opportunity to send in their names. More than that (and this was something that made Tom and his cousins very angry when they found it out), the constitution had been amended so that the membership could be increased to a hundred.