"What the devil have you done?" gasped Winthrop.
Before he answered, Sam waited until the cars were rattling to safety across the bridge.
"We have been protecting the face of nature," he shouted. "The only way to get that gang out of the engine house was to set fire to something. Tommy wanted to burn up the railroad station, because he doesn't like the New York and New Haven, and Fred was for setting fire to Judge Allen's house, because he was rude to Beatrice. But we finally formed the Village Improvement Society, organized to burn all advertising signs. You know those that stood in the marshes, and hid the view from the trains, so that you could not see the Sound. We chopped them down and put them in a pile, and poured gasolene on them, and that fire is all that is left of the pickles, fly-screens, and pills."
It was midnight when the cars drew up at the door of the house of Forbes. Anxiously waiting in the library were Mrs. Forbes and Ernest Peabody.
"At last!" cried Mrs. Forbes, smiling her relief; "we thought maybe Sam and you had decided to spend the night in New Haven."
"No," said Miss Forbes, "there WAS some talk about spending the night at Fairport, but we pushed right on."
II
THE TRESPASSERS
With a long, nervous shudder, the Scarlet Car came to a stop, and the lamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the rest of the encircling world in a chill and silent darkness.