“I’m likely to pull me a good switch an’ wear it out on ye, ye fresh Ike!” declared the constable. “Don’t you hand me no more sass—now I warn ye.”
“But to go away back to Tuckerville!” groaned Ruth.
“And not a hotel there,” Agnes said.
“I do not believe any justice of the peace will uphold this fellow if we do appear before him,” Mrs. Heard said.
“If ye don’t want to go,” said the constable, whose ears seemed to be as preternaturally keen as they were unnaturally large—“if ye don’t want to go back to Tuckerville, ye kin pay yer fine right here—ten dollars. That’ll be about right, unless I add on a coupla dollars more to pay for this boy’s sass.”
“What did I tell you?” exclaimed Neale, to the others. “It’s a hold-up!”
CHAPTER XX—EXCITEMENT
Neale O’Neil may not have been very wise in talking so plainly in the hearing of the mean-spirited fellow; but he could not be blamed for being indignant. It was positive that the Corner House girls’ automobile had not been speeding when the man with the badge stopped it. And now his demand for ten dollars showed plainly that his petty mind was interested only in getting money easily rather than in enforcing the law.
“You’d better keep a civil lip on you, young man,” said the constable, scowling at Neale. Then to Mrs. Heard he added: “Come now, lady, you can pay the fine to me and drive on; or you can go back to Tuckerville under arrest and pay it to Jedge Winslow. Take yer ch’ice.”
“Oh, dear me!” whispered Agnes. “Let’s give him the money and go on to the hotel Cecile Shepard told us about. Tuckerville, they say, is an awful place.”