“If it ever does,” said Ned, “you’ll hang over the cliff until you dry up and blow away for all of me, you poor simp!”
But when they had said good night to Bob Ned’s tune was different. “Old-timer,” he said after a silence, “you sure had me scared.”
“I know,” said Laurie soberly. “Sorry, Ned.”
“Uh-huh. ’S all right.” Ned slipped his arm in Laurie’s. “Wish you’d cut out that sort of thing, though. Always gives me heart-failure. It’s risky business, anyway.”
“Right,” agreed Laurie. After a minute, as they passed through the gate, he added, “No more I’ll risk my neck on dizzy height.”
“Well said, for if you do you’ve me to fight!”
That evening the twins were content to lounge in easy-chairs in the recreation-room and read, refusing challenges to ping-pong, chess, and various other engagements requiring exertion of mind or body. They went early to bed and, although Laurie roused once to hear Ned in the throes of nightmare and had to quiet him before returning to his own dreamless slumber, awoke in the morning their normal selves again.
After breakfast that morning Laurie announced to Ned that he was going to walk down and explain the broken window, and settle for it if settlement was demanded. Ned said, “All right, come along.” But Laurie persuaded the other that his presence during the conference with the quarry company officials was not only unnecessary but inadvisable. “You see,” he elaborated, “it’s going to require tact, old son, and Tact, as you know, is my middle name. Now, if I took you along you’d be sure to say something to queer the whole show and I’d have to fork over a dollar, maybe. No, better leave this to me, Ned.”
“Must say you fancy yourself a bit this morning,” scoffed Ned. “All right, though. Come over to Bob’s when you get back. I told him I’d go around there and look at the court.”
Laurie saved his dollar by narrating a moving tale of his fall from the cliff to the occupants of the small office down by the river. One weazened little man who held a pen in his mouth and talked through it or around it—Laurie couldn’t decide which—reminded the visitor that if he had not trespassed on quarry company property he wouldn’t have got in trouble. But it was plain that this view was not popular with the other members of the force present, and Laurie was permitted to depart with his last week’s allowance intact.