“Nope, I didn’t.”
“Then we must fix that up, too. You ought to hear the stories of deep-sea diving about some boys in other countries.” Dudley was trying to be entertaining. “They just throw money in the water, folks do, to see the fellows dive after it.”
“I know,” answered Nicky.
“Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of it in magazines,” ventured Barbara.
“Yeah, I did. My father used to get lots of magazines from the train men.”
There was silence for a time after that. Likely both Barbara and Dudley were blaming the state for having cut off even that opportunity for poor little Nicky. It hadn’t been much; just cast-off magazines, but they must have been educating, and they must have given real pleasure to the Italian gate-keeper’s family. But now he was in prison, just because he had been in company with bad men. But the public must be protected, although Barbara was not reasonable enough, just then, to think of that.
“We don’t have to ride home,” mumbled Nicky, as Dudley turned his car in under the towering trees that arched the roadway to Billows. “We can walk just as well.”
“But why not ride?” demanded Dudley. “That’s what this little bus is for.”
“I’ll tell you,” chimed in Barbara. “We’ll drive you as far as the tracks and you can walk home from there. Then, if your grandmother sees you coming she won’t be frightened as she might be if she saw you coming in a car.”
“Ye-ah, that’s right, that’ll be fine,” brightened Nicky, shifting around in the seat and plainly showing by his general brightness of manner what a relief that suggestion had brought him. “Ye-ah, that’ll be fine,” he repeated more than once, kicking the car with his very dirty bare feet, his joy seeming to affect his very toes.