CHAPTER II—A BROKEN WINDOW, AND GLORIOUS NEWS
“Gee whiz! Look who’s coming out of the house on the rampage, will you!” cried Bluff Masters, as the front door was flung open and an excited man hurried down the steps toward the spot where the four chums stood breathing hard after their recent exertions.
“It’s old Isaac Chase, the meanest man in Centerville!” exclaimed Jerry, in dismay.
“But we didn’t break his old window, you know,” expostulated Will Milton. “Here are lots of witnesses to prove it came from the other side.”
“Little he’ll care about that,” Bluff told him. “He must have seen us in the fight, and that settles it. Frank, you talk with him. I’d be apt to get sassy if he scolded too hard.”
So it usually came about. Upon Frank’s shoulders was laid the burden of extricating them from numerous mishaps. But Frank rather liked being made the scapegoat; he certainly faced the angry old miser of Centerville without showing a sign of alarm.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, you young rapscallions!” cried Isaac Chase, so excited that he could hardly control his trembling voice. “I don’t know what this town is coming to, when a pack of boys are allowed to fight battles right on the public streets, and with stones in their snowballs at that!”
He held up something he had in his hand, so that every one could see. It was a stone, there could be no doubt about that, with some of the snow still adhering to its sides.
Bluff rubbed the side of his head at seeing this, as though wondering whether the missile that had struck him there had also been loaded in that way.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Chase, that your window was broken,” said Frank steadily; “it was an accident, I give you my word about that. I happened to dodge a ball fired from the other side, and it went through the glass.”