“Oh, my no!” said Bertrand, looking frightened at the idea. “He never said a word to me; I wouldn’t go near him. But the man that tends our furnace heard him and he told me. And he says Mr. Bennett has all our names and he is going to see our fathers!”
The boys stared at each other. This was dreadful! Only Elmer Lambert smiled.
“I’m going home this afternoon,” he said. “Gee, I’m sorry for the rest of you.”
“I’m going to tell my father right away!” cried Bobby. “I’ll go out to the foundry before he comes home to lunch. He comes home at noon, Saturdays.”
But Fred Baldwin sprang up angrily.
“Don’t you dare!” he said excitedly, shaking his fist at Bobby. “Don’t you dare tell your father! He’d call up my father and then I’d catch it. My father will be mad if he hears I went into the old carpenter shop when the door was locked. That was all your fault, Bobby—we wouldn’t have gone in if you hadn’t.”
“Well, he went after your ball,” said Elmer reasonably. “And I guess your father will know you were in the shop if Mr. Bennett tells him about it, won’t he?”
“Perhaps he won’t tell him,” said the hopeful Fred. “He may forget all about it, or find out who really did set the shop on fire. But anyone who tells first is mean, because my father will scold like anything.”
So Bobby promised not to tell his father and the other boys promised to keep silent, too.
“There’s no use in making trouble,” declared Fred when the noon whistles blew and his friends started for their homes. “Perhaps Mr. Bennett won’t say a thing, and then think how silly we’d feel.”