"If he does, and I can fasten it on him, I'll give him such a punching that his cousins won't know him when they see him. I'm getting tired of this sort of work, and I'll not put up with it any longer. If Tom will not leave off bothering us of his own accord, I'll make him."
In due time the jury returned a "true bill" against Jake Coyle for burglary. Mr. Haskins had little difficulty in proving that Jake broke the fastenings of his door before he robbed the cellar, gave a list of the things he had lost, and Rube Royall, the watchman at the hatchery, testified that those same articles appeared on Matt Coyle's table on the following morning. Jake went to the House of Refuge for five years; but nothing could be proved against Sam and the old woman, and they were turned over to a justice of the peace to be tried for vagrancy. They got ninety days each in the New London work-house.
"There, Ralph," said Tom, when he read this welcome news in his father's paper. "You said Matt Coyle didn't care the snap of his finger for my wishes, but now you see that you were mistaken, don't you? Matt never told Joe Wayring that I sent them to his camp after that money, and his boys didn't blab it, either. If they had, Joe would have said something about it when he was brought before the grand jury."
"Well, what are you going to do to Joe now?" inquired his cousin. "I mean, what kind of a scrape are you going to get into next?"
"I do not intend to get into any scrape," answered Tom; and when he said it he meant it. "I shall treat Joe and everybody who likes him with the contempt they deserve. I wish I might never see them again. I tell you, fellows, I feel as if a big load had been taken from my shoulders. Matt will never again demand that I shall act as receiver for the property he steals, his vagabond family are safe under lock and key, I am free from suspicion, and what more could I ask for? For once in my life I am perfectly happy."
But, as it happened, Tom was not long permitted to live in this very enviable frame of mind—not more than a couple of hours, to be exact. Of late he had stayed pretty close around the house when he was not at school. He could not bear to loaf about the village, as he used to do, for fear that he might hear something annoying. But on this particular day (it was Saturday) he was so light of heart that he could not keep still, so he proposed a walk and a cigar. He and his cousins did not mind smoking on the streets now, for they had long ago given up all hope of ever being admitted to the ranks of the Toxopholites. But their desire to belong to that crack and somewhat exclusive organization was as strong as ever. Another thing, they were not on as friendly terms with the drug-store crowd as they used to be. A decision rendered by umpire Bigden during a game of ball excited the ire of George Prime and some of his friends, and as the weeks rolled on the dispute waxed so hot that on more than one occasion the adherents of both sides had been called on to interfere to keep George and Tom from coming to blows over it. Ralph reminded his cousin of this when the latter proposed a walk and a cigar.
"Oh, Prime has forgotten all about it before this time," said Tom confidently. "He has had abundant leisure to recover his good-nature, for the fuss began last fall."
"Don't you owe him something?"
"Yes; about fifty cents or so. But George isn't mean enough to raise a row about a little thing like that."