When it was finished, Phaeton brought it home and put it away carefully in the wood-shed.
"I am afraid," said he, "that somebody will steal this car, or come in and damage it, unless we put a lock on this wood-shed door."
"Who would want to steal it or damage it?" said Ned.
"The Dublin boys," said Phaeton, half under his breath. "Two of them were seen prowling around here the other day."
One section of the town, which was divided from ours by the deep gorge of the river, was popularly known as Dublin, and the boys who lived there, though probably very much like other boys, were always considered by us as our natural enemies—plotters against the peace of boy society, capable of the most treacherous designs and the darkest deeds ever perpetrated in the juvenile world. Every piece of mischief not obviously to be accounted for in any other way, was laid to the Dublin boys as a matter of course.
"But we haven't any padlock," said Ned, "except that old brass one, and the key of that is lost, and we couldn't turn it when we had it."
"I suppose we shall have to buy a new one," said Phaeton.
"All right—buy one," said Ned.
"I haven't any money," said Phaeton.
"Nor I," said Ned—"spent the last cent for a beautiful little font of Tuscan type; weighed just five pounds, fifteen cents a pound—nothing the matter with it, only the Es are gone."