Advancing to where the boys were once more climbing to their feet, he grasped each by the collar.
“I’ll take you along with me, young gents; this is serious business for you.”
They begged piteously to be let off, declaring that it was only a joke, but the officer was inexorable, and marched them to the station house, where they spent the rest of the night, Ben Mayberry having been notified to be on hand at nine o’clock the next morning, when the police justice would make an investigation.
CHAPTER XVI
THE THIRD TELEGRAM
When the father of Rutherford Richmond’s friend, at whose house the young Bostonian was visiting, learned the facts, he was indignant beyond description. He declared that Ben Mayberry had served the young scapegraces right, except he ought to have punished both more severely, which was rather severe, as was shown by the blackened eyes and bruised faces.
Ben declined to push the matter on the morrow, as the boys had been punished, and he had proved he was able to take care of himself, as against them, at any time. But the gentleman insisted that he would not permit the matter to drop, unless his son and Rutherford agreed to go to the telegraph office and beg the pardon of the boy whom he learned they had insulted under Mr. Grandin’s roof. Rutherford and his friend consented, and they humiliated themselves to that extent. The succeeding day Rutherford went home to Boston, and did not reappear in Damietta until long afterward, when he hoped the disgraceful episode was forgotten.
On the following week Dolly Willard returned to New York, and Ben, for the first time in his life, began to feel as though his native city had lost a good deal of the sunshine to which it was entitled.