“Hey!” screeched Ike, as we started for the door. “They’re takin’ the handbills with ’em.”
The mayor gave the screecher a sort of disgusted look.
“Why shouldn’t they? The handbills are theirs.”
“Yes,” whined Ike, more hungry-looking than ever, “an’ they’ll go peddlin’ ’em out on the sly.” [[99]]
The mayor followed us to the door, his hands on our shoulders.
“Forget about it, boys. As I say, I’m sorry that it happened; but, of course, as long as we have this ordinance I must stand by it.”
When we came to the dock we had to pick our way through a knot of kids. Red was yelling through the megaphone, telling the curious ones what a wonderful show awaited them. But the spieler quickly put away his megaphone at sight of our angry faces.
“Tee! hee!” he snickered, when he had been told about our arrest. “I wish I could have seen you in the coop. I bet you made a swell pair of jailbirds.”
“Laugh all you want to,” growled Scoop, “but the Strickers are going to get their pay for this. We didn’t do anything to them when they tried to destroy our stuff. And we didn’t go after them when they stretched the rope across the canal. But this time they’re going to catch it.”
We kept the organ grinding away all of the afternoon. The kids enjoyed it. We kept telling them that they would miss the treat of their lives if they passed up seeing the Great Kermann.