The next moment he, too, was escorted into the consulting room. To the boys’ amazement, he rushed up to them and, with continental demonstrativeness, began wringing their hands up and down and uttering a tirade against the police, the methods they employed and the force in general.
“You are interested in this case, sir?” inquired Captain Bracebridge.
“Interested!” M. La Farge appeared to be about to explode. “The police! Bah! Dunderheads! Idiots! Assassins! These boys saved my wife and daughter from ruffians who would rob them, and——”
“Your wife and daughter?” exclaimed the boys in one breath. Their case was certainly taking a startling turn, for already their attorney had whispered who the newcomer was and his high rank.
“Yes, they told me about it on their arrival home last night, and also about the cowardly, foolish actions of Alphonse, the chauffeur, whom I have discharged. When I read in the papers of the arrest of two American lads and the story that they told, despite which the police had arrested them, I was angry, furious. I knew then that the deliverers of my dear ones had been arrested like felons,” exploded M. La Farge. “I hastened here at once to make what reparation I could for such an act of the idiots, the police! Bah!”
“Perhaps the police were not altogether to blame,” said Jack as the peppery M. La Farge concluded his angry harangue. “We should not have run away, and then perhaps we should not have been arrested.”
“It was all the fault of that foolish chauffeur in driving away as he did,” exclaimed M. La Farge. “But in one sense I am glad all this has happened, although I am deeply mortified at the same time. Had it not been for this occurrence, I should never have known whom to thank for the brave act you performed. I could not have rewarded you——”
He drew out a check book. But both boys held up expostulating hands.
“None of that, if you please, sir,” said Jack.
“He speaks for me, too,” said Raynor. “We’d do the same thing over again, if it had to be done.”