“You know all about those freezers!” Brad accused.
“Tell us how they happened to be delivered to us!” Dan requested.
“Well, it was like this,” Mr. Smith said. “I overheard the Cubs talking about needing a couple of freezers. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I dug ’em out of the basement here, and left them at the church.”
“You certainly put us in a spot,” Brad informed him. “We had a swell time making the ice cream, but Terry Treuhaft came looking for those freezers. He would have made a fearful fuss, only as it happened, we didn’t have ’em.”
“Someone—we suspect Pat and his bunch—had swiped them,” Dan explained, grinning at the recollection.
Now that the incident was half-way forgotten, his resentment at Pat gradually was fading.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Mr. Smith admitted. “But no one was using those freezers. The Cubs needed ’em. So I thought I’d do them a friendly turn.”
“You’re certainly all for the Cubs,” Dan said, studying the stranger curiously. “Is it because of Chub?”
“Well, I took a shine to the youngster.”
Mr. Smith had finished picking up his toilet articles. Now that his hair was combed, his clothing brushed, he looked entirely presentable.