“Yes, wild ... absolutely mad ... must have escaped from the asylum ... no one escaped from the asylum? ... then they must have been going to the asylum and escaped on the way ... well, if they aren’t lunatics they’re criminals. Please send a large force.”
******
It was when two stalwart and quite obviously English policemen appeared that William’s bewilderment finally took from him the power of speech.
“Crumbs!” was all he said.
He was quite silent all the way home. He coldly repulsed all the policemen’s friendly overtures.
Mrs. Brown screamed when from the lounge window she saw her son and his friend approaching with their escort. It was Mr. Brown who went boldly out to meet them, paid vast sums of hush money to the police force and brought in his son by the scruff of his neck.
“Well,” said William almost tearfully, at the end of a long and painful course of home truths, “’f they’d reely been cannibals and eaten me you’d p’raps have been sorry.”
Mr. Brown, whose peace had been disturbed and reputation publicly laid low by William’s escort and appearance, looked at him.
“You flatter yourself, my son,” he said with bitterness.
******