I thought I could throw a little light on this dark subject. It was Monday morning, and I had been looking over the fence into the Merrill garden only half an hour before.
"There ain't any distressed damsels there, Peter," I said earnestly; "I saw 'em. One of 'em's Katie Clancy,—an' she lives there all the time, an' the other is Mrs. Muldoon, an' she's hangin' out the wash."
But I was unmercifully snubbed for my pains.
"You make me perfectly tired," he retorted. "I don't mean Katie, nor Mrs. Muldoon. I know them. The—er—damsels are in dungeons below the ground."
I turned to Rob Currier, Jimmy Toppan, and Horace Winslow, who had come into the Masons' back yard with Peter. But they had been under the influence of Peter's warlike mind and persuasive tongue for an hour or more. They seemed to believe in the damsels, and their confidence tended to shake my doubts.
Ed Mason was not so easily moved from scepticism.
"What are they doin' there?" he inquired.
"Doin'? They ain't doin' anything, you chump! They're chained hand an' foot to the rock. How could they do anything? They're waitin' for us to rescue 'em."
"Why don't they call a p'liceman?"