"These young ladies consulted me," went on Dr. Bentley. "Of course they wanted the whole matter kept very quiet, and they made me promise secrecy. I told them that I didn't like their plan at all, but they coaxed, and I will admit that I yielded to their coaxing very much against my best judgment. They wanted to be able to say that they hadn't paid the farmer, or made any arrangement whatever with him. That much is true. They didn't approach the farmer—-they sent me. I went to Farmer Gibson and made the arrangement with him for the supplies, paying him in advance a fair price for whatever the young ladies would take out of his garden. Yet, in spite of my care in the matter, and my very explicit directions to them, it seems that they went astray, and descended upon the truck garden of Mr. Dobson, instead of that of Mr. Gibson. Mr. Dobson, not having received any pay, very naturally objected to being looted of his vegetables while Mr. Gibson received the money. But I have been able to explain matters in a satisfactory manner to Mr. Dobson, and have sent him on his ways"
Eight very crestfallen high school girls listened to this recital.
The boys, had they not felt a manly sympathy for their discomfited friends, would have laughed outright.
"I am glad that it is no worse," said Mrs. Bentley in a relieved voice. "At the same time, it was a very silly performance."
"It was," nodded the doctor, who turned to the girls to add:
"My dears, as you succeeded this time in making me your very reluctant accomplice, I am in no position to say very much to you. But I trust you all realize the situation and its outcome, and that you will never allow yourselves to be made ridiculous again in any such way."
"I don't believe we shall," Laura replied. "We felt ashamed of ourselves afterwards, but we were silly enough to feel because we had pledged ourselves to forage for fruit and vegetables that the joke must be carried out."
"Tom Reade," snapped Susie Sharp, "you are just bursting with laughter that you can hardly hold back."
"Not I!" Tom denied promptly. "I am congratulating myself that we boys had sense enough not to take seriously your claim that you had been robbing anyone's garden. As it happened, you did that very thing, but you didn't know it, and you didn't mean to."
There was an embarrassed silence. Then Dick proposed: