"G'wan!" says I, gettin' up and exhibitin' the squirt gun. "I was only handin' him some of the same sport he's been dealin' out to others. It'll do him good."
"You—you young scoundrel!" says mommer. Then, turnin' to the old lady who came in with her, she gasps out, "Zenobia, telephone for the police!"
It's the real thing, too, and no flossy bluff about the lady's grouch. She's a swell, haughty-lookin' party, and she acts like she was used to havin' her own way about things. So the prospects begin to look squally. Not that I'm one to curl up and shiver at sight of a cop. Give me plenty of room to do the hotfoot act, and I don't mind guyin' any of them pavement-pounders; but with me shut up in a house where I hadn't been invited in, and a bunch of excited females as witnesses against me, it's a diff'rent proposition. This was no time to weaken, though.
"Go ahead," says I. "Double six-O-four-two Gramercy; that's the green light number for this district. And Uncle Patrick'll be glad to see you. Tell him you got charges to make on his nephew. That'll tickle him to death. Maybe I'll have something to say when we all get there, too."
"What do you mean?" says Hadley's mother.
"Counter complaint, that's all," says I. "Your little darling soaked me first."
"It—it isn't true!" says she. "I don't believe it!"
And here Zenobia comes in with the soothin' advice. She's another whitehaired old lady, lookin' something like the one in the chair, only not so bulky and with more ginger about her. "Now, Sally," says she, "let's not talk of calling in the police over a trifle. Hadley doesn't appear to be hurt, and possibly he was somewhat at fault."
"The idea!" says Sally. "Why, I saw this young ruffian pommeling him. And look! Martha is bound in her chair. He's a burglar!"
Oh, they had a great debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me out worse than the last.