"We broke one at Grandma Bell's," said Russ.
"But she didn't make us pay for it," said Laddie.
"Tom Hardy, the hired man, put a new glass in," went on Russ. "And once we broke a window back home when we were playing ball. I threw the ball, and Laddie didn't grab it, and it went through a candy-store window, but we didn't run."
"What did you do?" asked Tom, to whom this seemed something new. He looked up at the place where the window had been smashed. As yet no one had thrust a head out of the window or threatened to send for a policeman. "What did you do?" asked Tom again.
"Well, the lady who owned the candy store knew us," answered Russ, "and she knew our father would pay for the glass."
"Did he?"
"Why, of course he did!" exclaimed Laddie.
"But he said we each had to save up and give him back five cents—a penny at a time," added Russ. "That was to help pay for the glass, and make us—make us more careful, I guess he called it.
"Anyhow, that's what I'm going to do now. We'll wait, and when somebody comes out I'll tell 'em my father'll pay for the glass my top broke."
"Here comes somebody now!" whispered Tom, and surely enough a man, wearing blue overalls and looking as though he had been cleaning out a cellar, came from the basement door of the big apartment house.