“No she isn’t,” snapped Curly. “She only thinks she is. I never done it.”
“Well,” said Ruth, with a sigh, “I’m glad to hear you say that, although it’s very bad grammar.”
“Hang grammar!” cried the excited Curly. “I never stole a cent’s worth in my life. And they all know it. But if they’d got me up before Judge Necker I’d got a hundred years in jail, I guess. He hates me.”
“Why?”
Curly looked away. “Well, I played a trick on him. More’n one, I guess. He gets so mad, it’s fun.”
“Your idea of fun has brought you to a pretty hard bed, I guess, Curly,” was Ruth Fielding’s comment.
CHAPTER XXII—SOMETHING FOR CURLY
Helen Cameron was very proud of Curly. She was, in the first place, deeply grateful for what the boy had done for her the time the stag frightened her so badly in the City Park at Norfolk. Then, it seemed to her, that he had shown a deal of pluck in getting so far from home as this Southern land, and keeping clear of the police, as well.
“You must admit, Ruth, that he is awfully smart,” she repeated again and again to her chum.
“I don’t see it—much,” returned Ruth Fielding. “I don’t see how he got away down here on the little money he says he had at the start. He bought the frock and hat and shoes he wore with his own money, and paid his fare on the boat. But that took all he had, and he had to get work in Norfolk. He worked a week for a contractor there. That’s when he saved you from the deer, my dear!”