“Oh, keep quiet, boys. What’s the use of talking!” said Ralph with a helpless look.
“H’ow, no. Talk all you want to, mates,” said the cockney sergeant. “H’it h’amuses me, don’cher know.”
“Well, what do you know about that!” gasped Harry.
“M’ dear young chaps, h’I know nothing whatever h’about h’it,” replied the sergeant.
Fairly baffled by such obtuseness, which seemed impossible to be natural and therefore only assumed to irritate, the boys left the police station.
“Well, what shall we do now?” asked Harry hopelessly. “I guess we are up a tree for fair.”
“I don’t see it in that light,” responded Ralph. “On the contrary, these obstacles make me all the more determined to nail this crowd and find out what sort of crooked work they are up to. We’ll go back to the telegraph office and find out what reply I’ve got from dad at Montreal.”
“And then?”
“Well, I’ve got a plan if you fellows will consent to it.”
“We’re in on anything you suggest, Ralph,” responded Harry, while Persimmons vigorously nodded his endorsement to that.