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The Story of a Bad Boy

24 of 75

quite a time on the Square last night," remarked Captain Nutter, looking up from the Rivermouth Bamacle, which was always placed beside his coffee-cup at breakfast. I felt that my hair was preparing to stand on end. "Quite a time," continued my grandfather. "Some boys broke into Ezra Wingate's barn and carried off the old stagecoach. The young rascals! I do believe they'd burn up the whole town if they had their way." With this he resumed the paper. After a long silence he exclaimed, "Hullo!" upon which I nearly fell off the chair. "'Miscreants unknown,"' read my grandfather, following the paragraph with his forefinger; "'escaped from the bridewell, leaving no clew to their identity, except the letter H, cut on one of the benches.' 'Five dollars reward offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators.' Sho! I hope Wingate will catch them." I don't see how I continued to live, for on hearing this the breath went entirely out of my body. I beat a retreat from the room as soon as I could, and flew to the stable with a misty intention of mounting Gypsy and escaping from the place. I was pondering what steps to take, when Jack Harris and Charley Marden entered the yard. "I say," said Harris, as blithe as a lark, "has old Wingate been here?" "Been here?" I cried, "I should hope not!" "The whole thing's out, you know," said Harris, pulling Gypsy's forelock over her eyes and blowing playfully into her nostrils. "You don't mean it!" I gasped. "Yes, I do, and we are to pay Wingate three dollars apiece. He'll make rather a good spec out of it." "But how did he discover that we were the-the miscreants?" I asked, quoting mechanically from the Rivermouth Bamacle. "Why, he saw us take the old ark, confound him! He's been trying to sell it any time these ten years. Now he has sold it to us. When he found that we had slipped out of the Meat Market, he went right off and wrote the advertisement offering five dollars reward; though he knew well enough who had taken the coach, for he came round to my father's house before the paper was printed to talk the matter over. Wasn't the governor mad, though! But it's all settled, I tell you. We're to pay Wingate fifteen dollars for the old go-cart, which he wanted to sell the other day for seventy-five cents, and couldn't. It's a downright swindle. But the funny part of it is to come." O, there's a funny part to it, is there?" I remarked bitterly. "Yes. The moment Bill Conway saw the advertisement, he knew it was Harry Blake who cut that letter H on the bench; so off he rushes up to Wingate-kind of him, wasn't it?-and claims the reward. 'Too late, young man,' says old Wingate, 'the culprits has been discovered.' You see Sly-boots hadn't any intention of paying that five dollars." Jack Harris's statement lifted a weight from my bosom. The article in the Rivermouth Barnacle bad placed the affair before me in a new light. I had thoughtlessly committed a grave offence. Though the property in question was valueless, we were clearly wrong in destroying it. At the same time Mr. Wingate had tacitly sanctioned the act by not preventing it when he might easily have done so. He had allowed his property to be destroyed in order that be might realize a large profit. Without waiting to hear more, I went straight to Captain Nutter, and, laying my remaining three dollars on his knee, confessed my share in the previous night's transaction. The Captain heard me through in profound silence, pocketed the bank-notes, and walked off without speaking a word. He had punished me in his own whimsical fashion at the breakfast table, for, at the very moment be was harrowing up my soul by reading the extracts from the Rivermouth Barnacle, he not only knew all about the bonfire, but had paid Ezra Wingate his three dollars. Such was the duplicity of that aged impostor I think Captain Nutter was justified in retaining my pocketmoney, as additional punishment, though the possession of it later in the day would have got me out of a difficult position, as the reader will see further on. I returned with a light heart and a large piece of punk to my friends in the stable-yard, where we celebrated the termination of our trouble by

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