“Sure,” I said, “that’s six. I wonder how much the fare to Albany is—the round trip?”
“It’s not so very round,” Pee-wee said.
“It’s a kind of triangular circle,” I told him. “If we pay our fare both ways we don’t get any dinner in Albany, we’ll have to walk back. And if we don’t have some dinner we can’t walk. So there you are; take your choice. It’s as clear as mud.”
“You’ve got us into a nice fix,” the kid said. “I knew you were crazy when you made us throw away those chocolate bars. The next thing you’ll have us in jail.”
“You should worry, you can eat the prison bars,” I told him.
“Let’s see how much money we’ve got,” Bert said.
I had about seventy-five cents and the cap of a fountain pen that I use for a whistle.
Pee-wee had fifty-two cents and a lot of junk; we had a little over seven dollars altogether. It was lucky that was enough for our fare to Albany. But we didn’t get much change. The conductor said the train went to Albany without change—I guess that’s why we didn’t get much.
“How can we hike back thirty miles to-day, tell me that?” the Animal Cracker wanted to know.
“That’s easy,” I said; “by doing two miles at a time, that makes fifteen. Are you getting frightened?”