Giraffe nodded, and smiled.
“Oh! I’ll be on the watch not to knock the poor chaps silly, if they take warning, and clear out,” he remarked, as he hid the article in question away, but in a place where it could be quickly seized.
It was in anything but a pleasant humor that Thad prepared to leave the village where they had been hospitably entertained, after that first little misunderstanding. He did not like this idea of meeting the attack of the Belgian boys with violence, but there seemed to be no other way, for the old man had declined to ride out with them, saying that he did not wish to be connected at all with the matter, and considered his duty done in giving them due warning.
Thad was really under the impression that he would not be sorry if the boys received some sort of drubbing to pay them for their audacity in treating strangers in the way they intended.
There was no choice about the route; it was necessary that they go up or down the river, since no other road led away from the place. Of course across the river there was one they would have been glad to have taken, only with the bridge gone it was not possible to get the car over.
“Somebody waving his hand to us, Thad, over there at that cottage window,” observed the watchful Giraffe.
“I think it must be our old friend,” said Thad, as he made haste to answer the signal. “Yes, I can see his face now, and his gray beard.”
They passed out of the village, with the people simply looking after them, for all signs of resentment had apparently died out. These good folks had too many serious troubles of their own to think of hunting up new ones.
“I wonder how far we’ll get before they jump out at us?”
That was Bumpus trying to secure an opinion. It was one of his ways of fishing for what he called “a rise.” And as usual Giraffe hastened to accommodate him.