“That’s another proof that it wasn’t any ball we threw that broke the window,” put in Joe. “Each one of us is willing to swear that there was no stone in any ball that we threw.”
“Not only then but at any time,” put in Herb. “Only a mean coward would do a thing like that. None of us has done it any time in his life.”
“I believe that,” replied Mr. Talley. “I’ve known all you boys ever since you were little kids and I know you wouldn’t be capable of it.”
“That’s all very well,” said Mr. Larsen. “But that doesn’t pay for my window. Whether any of you boys threw the ball or not you can’t deny that you were engaged in a snowball fight right in front of my windows. If the fight hadn’t been going on the window wouldn’t have been smashed.”
There was a certain amount of justice in this, and the boys were fair enough to acknowledge it.
“I suppose you are right there, Mr. Larsen,” said Bob regretfully. “We ought to have kept out of range of the windows, but in the excitement we forgot all about that. Then, too, we never would have supposed that any ordinary snowball would have broken the window. Perhaps that was in the back of our minds, if we thought of it at all.”
“Is the window insured?” queried Mr. Talley.
“Yes, it is,” answered the storekeeper.
“Well, then, that lets you out,” remarked Mr. Talley, with a note of relief in his voice. “That puts the matter up to the insurance company. If they want to take any legal steps they can; and of course they ought to be compensated by the parents of the boy who may be found guilty of having thrown the ball with a stone in it. For my part, I doubt very much that it can ever be proved, unless the boy himself owns up to it.”
“Think of Buck Looker ever owning up to anything!” muttered Jimmy.