"But I knew there was something behind it all," Theodora continued. "Now what was it?"
"Nothing—much," replied Addison, evasively.
"Oh, but there was," exclaimed Theodora. "Tell me."
"Nothing but the usual 'circus,' when Halse goes out anywhere," replied Addison wearily, yet still laughing a little.
"But tell me what it was," Theodora urged.
With a certain reluctance which boys always feel, to divulge circumstances that pertain mainly to boys and boys' affairs, we related to her the salient events of the afternoon, for it would have been a bad return for her kindness to us to have refused altogether, and we felt, too, that her motive was something more than mere curiosity.
Theodora was a fun-loving girl by nature; she laughed over the snap-cracker episodes, and laughed, indeed, at the Elm House roof exploit, and even could not help laughing at Alfred and Halse's final trick with Enoch's clothes.
"But that was mean," she kept saying. "What do you suppose he will do? Will he have them arrested?"
"No, I guess not," replied Addison. "I think it will pass as a joke. Enoch will probably get his clothes back, in a day or two, if not his boots."
"But he declared he would give Alf and Halse an awful licking the first time he meets them out anywheres," I said.