Excerpt from Dave Porter and His Rivals, or the Chums and Foes of Oak Hall When I brought out the first volume of this series, entitled Dave Porter at Oak Hall, I trusted that the story would please the young people for whom it was written, but I did not imagine that so many thousands of boys and girls all over our broad land would take to Dave as they have, and would insist upon knowing more about him. My opening tale was one of boarding school life, and this was followed by Dave Porter in the South Seas, whither our hero had gone in search of his father, and then by Dave Porter's Return to School, in which book Dave met all of his friends again and likewise a few of his enemies. So far our hero had heard about his father, but had not yet seen his parent, and the next volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"Everybody ready?" "Yes, Dave; let her go!" cried Phil Lawrence. "How about you folks in the other auto?" queried Dave Porter, as he let off the hand brake and advanced the spark and lever of the machine he was about to run. "We are all ready," responded Roger Morr. "Been ready for an hour," added Ben Basswood, who sat beside Roger. "Oh, Ben, not quite as long as that!" burst out Laura Porter, who was one of three girls in the tonneau of the second car. "Well, make it fifty-eight minutes then; I'm not particular," responded Ben, calmly. "Are the lunch hampers in?" asked Jessie Wadsworth, anxiously. "Mamma said we musn't forget anything." "Trust Dave and Roger to look after the food," burst out Phil Lawrence. "Likewise Mr. Phil Lawrence," added Dave. "Just wait till it comes lunch time, and you'll see Phil stow away about fifteen chicken sandwiches, ten slices of cake, three pickles, five olives--"

"[...]seen or heard from him since we met in Europe-and I don't want to see him," added Dave, earnestly. Toot! toot! came from behind the leading automobile, and a moment later the second car ranged up alongside. "Guess you folks are doing more talking than running!" cried Roger, with a grin. "Here is where we show you the road!" And in a twinkling the second car shot ahead, and was "hitting her up," as Ben expressed it, at thirty miles an hour. Dave immediately turned on more speed likewise, and over the smooth, straight road both[...]".

Edward Stratemeyer (1862-1930) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was an American publisher and writer of books for children. He wrote 150 books himself, and created the most famous of the series books for juveniles, including the Rover Boys (1899 and after), Bobbsey Twins (1904), Tom Swift (1910), Hardy Boys (1927), and Nancy Drew (1930) series, among others. Stratemeyer pioneered the technique of producing long-running, consistent series of books using a team of freelance authors to write standardised novels, which were published under a pen name owned by his company. Through his Stratemeyer Syndicate, founded in 1906, Stratemeyer produced short plot summaries for the novels in each series, which he sent to other writers who completed the story. Stratemeyer's series were also innovative in that they were intended purely as entertainment, with little of the moral lessons or educational intent found in most other popular fiction of the early twentieth century. Stratemeyer's series included, besides the famous ones, many that are now forgotten except by collectors: The Motor Boys (1906), Honey Bunch (1923), The Blythe Girls (1925) and Bomba the Jungle Boy (1926).