"Now, don't do that," adjured the Watermelon. It was just possible that the police had already picked up his trail and he preferred the chance of escaping in a car to stealing away by himself, through the woods, a tramp again, leaving behind him Billy and a week of fun. "Alphonse can bring up the cars and we can slip away before the reinforcements come. See?"
"I will explain that it was a mistake—"
"Mistakes," said the Watermelon coldly, "aren't on the cards in school and the law. Come up to the house and see the others first, anyway."
"One can afford mistakes as well as any other luxury," said Bartlett. "Money is all the fellows want."
"Let's talk it over first with the others, anyway," urged the Watermelon, feeling that it might be that money was not all they wanted.
They found the general and the girls in the kitchen putting it in order.
"Certainly," said the general with the calmness of one immune from the law. "We will explain."
"What?" asked Henrietta, as she drew shut the basket lid and slipped in the catch.
"Father used to say that if what you've done makes a fight, explanations will only make another," said the Watermelon. While he had the time he realized that he should slip away, but there was a chance that the police, finding their youthful quarry in the society of a general and a reputable and wealthy citizen of New York, could be impressed with the belief that they had made a mistake, and the Watermelon was always ready to take chances. Still, there was no need of running needless risk, and if he could persuade them all to escape with him in the cars, he would do it.
Henrietta nodded. Billy was for an instant flight. "We might as well," she explained lucidly, eying her father questioningly.