“Josiah E. West.”
“That’s all there is to it,” Justice Winters said; “there’s no use trying to get the better of a man like Judge West. Which would you prefer to do; accept the money, or have me hold you on a technical charge of appropriating a rag dummy, until I can notify the Judge?”
“You’d—you’d better take the check, Harry,” Pee-wee piped up; “it wouldn’t be safe to try to foil a man like Judge West—safety first, Harry—we’d better take the check.”
I wish I had a snapshot of those three men to show you—especially the big one. They looked as if they were suffering from shell shock.
CHAPTER XXIX—WE HAVE AN ELECTION
So that was the end of Mr. Ragtime Sandbanks; anyway, it was the last of him as far as we know. Harry said maybe those men would get him a job as a detective. Gee whiz, there are worse detectives, believe me. Harry said he was one of the greatest movie heroes that ever lived—or didn’t live; what’s the difference? He said he liked him, because he didn’t keep smiling all the time and aiming pistols like some movie heroes. Some knocker.
We had a conclave about that five hundred dollars; that’s what Pee-wee called it—a conclave. And we voted whether we should keep it or not. Pee-wee said it would be contempt of court not to keep it, and that a scout must obey his superiors. Skinny said if we didn’t take it, maybe we’d all have to go to jail. Harry said it might be fun to go to jail, because that was one of the things he had never done.
I said, “The longer you put it off, the more you’ll enjoy it; lots of people are in too much of a hurry to go to jail.”
Cracky, we didn’t know what to do, because a scout is supposed not to take anything for a service. We sat there in the auto talking and talking about it, and all of us kept changing around, and I guess we didn’t know what would be right for us to do.
I said, “If it was just a glass of soda or something like that, I’d know what to do with it.”