"That's about it," was the reply. "What's the harm?"
"Why, you know it ain't right; I'm not going to do it if you are." And Bert really meant what he said.
But, as luck would have it, on their way back to the school, what should they meet but that spectacle, one of the most attractive of the winter's sights in the eyes of a Halifax schoolboy, a fireman's sleigh drive. Driving gaily along the street, between lines of spectators, came sleigh after sleigh, drawn by four, six, or even eight carefully matched and brightly decked horses, and filled to overflowing with the firemen and their fair friends, while bands of music played merry tunes, to which the horses seemed to step in time.
Bert and Shorty had of course to stop and see this fine sight, and it chanced that when it was about one-half passed, one of the big eight horse teams got tangled up with a passing sleigh, and a scene of confusion ensued that took a good while to set right. When at length all was straightened out, and the procession of sleighs had passed, Shorty asked a gentleman to tell him the time.
"Five minutes to eleven, my lad," was the startling reply.
Shorty looked significantly at Bert. "Most too late now, don't you think?"
Bert hesitated. He shrank from the ordeal of entering the crowded schoolroom, and being detected and punished by Mr. Garrison, in the presence of all the others. Yet he felt that it would be better to do that than not go to school at all—in other words, meech.
"Oh, come along, Bert," said Shorty; "old Garrison can do without us to-day."
Still Bert stood irresolute.
"Let's go down and see the big steamer that came in last night," persisted Shorty, who was determined not to go to school, and to keep Bert from going too.