A roar of laughter greeted this suggestion, the impracticability of which was exceeded only by its absurdity, could it have been carried out.
Dame Grundy and Squire Hardgrit would certainly have made a most mirth-provoking sight, done up in suits of tar and feathers.
The speech served its purpose, however, in loosening the other tongues, and plans and projects now poured in thick and fast.
"S'pose we burn their barns down," said Dick Wilding, who was a great reader of cheap-novel literature.
But all the rest shouted "No" at once.
"What do you say to ham-stringing their horses?" asked Bob Henderson, in rather a dubious tone, as if he had not much confidence in the wisdom of his scheme, which, in fact, just occurred to him because he had read that that was the way the Arabs treat their enemies' horses when they get the chance.
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the chairman. "That's not the sort of thing we mean at all. We're not hankering after the penitentiary."
"Give us your plan, then, Mr. Chairman," said Dick Wilding.
"Well, fellows, I'll tell you what I was thinking of. Let us hook the old lady's gobblers, and hide them until she thinks they're gone for good. You know what a heap she thinks of them, and it will worry her awfully to lose them."
"Capital! capital!" shouted the rest of the boys "The very thing!"