"I say, fellows, I wonder if we can let Tip go—-now that we know the whole story?" breathed Dick.
"Say, I'll make it worth yer while," proposed Tip, eagerly.
"How about the law?" asked Dave Darrin, seriously. "Have we any right to let the fellow go, when we know he has committed a serious crime?"
"I don't know," replied Prescott. "All I'm thinking of is good, honest old John Scammon."
"It'd break me old man's heart—-sure it would," put in Tip, cunningly.
At the first cry from Belle and Laura Bentley, however Mrs. Meade, who was also in the secret, had hurried down into Clark Street. Just as it happened she had espied a policeman less than a block away. That officer, posted by Mrs. Meade, now came hurrying down the alleyway.
"Oho! Tip, is it?" demanded the policeman. "Let him up, Darrin.
I can handle him. Now, then, what's the row about?"
Thereupon Dick and his chums had to tell the story. There was no way out of it. Officer Connors heard a little of it, then decided:
"The station house is the place to tell the rest of this. Come along, Tip. And you youngsters trail along behind."
Though the station house was not far away, a good-sized crowd was trailing along by the time they reached the business stand of the police. Tip was hustled in through the doorway, the three young freshmen following. Leaning over the railing, smoking and chatting with the sergeant at the desk, was plain clothes man Hemingway.