"Red pepper," returned Ripley sullenly. He spoke before he thought, thus admitting his guilt and Dodge's.
"You idiot!" hissed Bert.
"You're both of you idiots," retorted the captor, who had now released both young men. "Besides being a mean, detestable trick, it's as old as the world. That red-pepper trick was invented by some stupid lout who lived thousands of years before the Flood."
"What shall we do with these imps?" demanded a voice.
"There must be some High School boys here," said the man who had first seized the humiliated pair by their collars. "Let the High School boys decide what is to be done with them."
"We don't care what's done with a pair of simpletons like them," spoke up Ben Tozier. "Let the crowd go as far as it likes with such a pair."
"Don't you dare do anything to us" screamed Ripley, now beside himself with rage. "It will go hard with any one who interferes with us.
"Ha! ha! Ho! ho!" roared some of the crowd. "Listen to the half-witted pair!"
While another man spoke up jovially:
"I'll tell you what to do with them. They came here to spoil the fun of the Grammar School boys. Let the Grammar School boys dispose of these stupid fellows as they choose."