Although Jet had had but little experience in this line, he knew that the receipts at the door, even if the small hall should be filled, would not amount to enough to settle the bills, and from it must necessarily be taken sufficient to carry the party to the next town.
"I haven't got half as much as you need, and if I had it would be wrong to use it."
"Then you intend to pay your own fine and give us the slip, eh?"
"I should have a perfect right to do so, because I took no part in the stealing of the fruit; but I shall stay with the rest."
During the next ten minutes the manager pleaded in vain with the boy, and then recognizing the uselessness of his arguments, left the building in a pet.
Meanwhile the members of the company did not look upon the imprisonment as such a very great hardship.
"Say, who has to pay our board while we are here?" one of the party asked the jailer.
"I reckon it'll come on the town."
"Then so long as it costs us nothing, what's the use of repining?" and the man started a song, in which he was joined by his companions, until the dilapidated building fairly shook with the alleged melody.
As a matter of course, this had the effect of drawing the idle ones to the jail doors, and the applause from the outside induced a continuance of the free concert.