“Well,” Brent said, all the while trying not to laugh, “we’re out for adventure; we have to take what comes.”
“We don’t have to take other people’s machines,” Harry said. He wasn’t mad, because he always sees the funny side of things himself, and he was laughing, too, but I guess all of us felt pretty cheap, because a scout—well, you know——
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when a party of Boy Scouts would steal an auto,” he said. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything to do, but sit around and wait for the owner to come and have us arrested. I wonder if they have a nice comfortable jail here, with modern improvements. I hate a jail without electric lights.”
Brent said in that funny way of his, “I rather like the way things are turning out. I’ve never been in jail. I’ve often promised little Bill here that some day we’d go to jail, and now we’re going to have our wish. I’ve read about prisoners escaping from jail—ladders, files, and all that sort of stuff. Now’s our chance. We’ll drug a keeper. Ever drug a keeper, Harry? I’d a great deal rather escape from a jail than find buried treasure. That’s a real adventure; regular Monte Cristo stuff.”
“I kinder think I’d like that, too,” Harry said; “I never thought of it before.”
“This is just the right kind of a trip,” Brent said, “we don’t have to run after the adventures; they come after us.”
“Oh, they’ll come after us all right,” Harry said.
“Will we have to go to prison for twenty years?” poor little Skinny piped up.
“People who make mistakes like that ought to go up for life,” Harry said; “and then some.”
“Lis—lis—lis—lis—’en!” Pee-wee began shouting, all the while waving the newspaper in the air. He was just getting his breath, but nobody paid any attention to him. Harry and Brent sat there on a bench, side by side, and it was awful funny to see them—they just kept us laughing.