Peacocks' eggs! Forty dollars!
I have no recollection of the rest of the meal. The elder Toppans talked together, I believe, but on what subject I have not the faintest notion.
In five or six minutes Jimmy and I were safely over the fence and running across the meadow. We had to stop once or twice for breath, but we covered the distance to the wooded swamp in record time. Back of a large oak, where we were nearly covered by ferns, we stopped and panted.
Jimmy spoke first.
"They don't hang people under sixteen years old," he said.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," he replied.
"They put 'em in prison, though," I remarked, "for life!"
"What'll we do?" asked Jimmy.