“Easy, Carrington, easy,” broke in Jack Beavers and he stepped between the belligerents, “Don’t raise a row,” he pleaded with Pep. “There’s enough going on that’s disagreeable without any more added.” Then he followed Pep as the latter went back to the street. “See here, I don’t want any trouble with you people,” he went on in an anxious way. “So far as I’m concerned, I give you my word of honor I don’t know the first thing about this sign business.”
Pep looked at the speaker’s face and was almost tempted to believe him.
“You needn’t tell me!” he declared. “Those fellows are a mean lot and they ought to be punished.”
Pep returned to the Wonderland with his tale. Frank tried to quiet him, but Pep’s indignation had got the better of him.
“If you can make certain that the National crowd did this damage, we can make them pay for it,” said Frank, “but I don’t want to proceed on guesswork.”
“Oh, you know as well as I do that they did it, Frank Durham!” stormed Pep.
“I think they did, yes,” acknowledged Frank, “but if we go to making any charges we cannot prove Mrs. Carrington will hear of it, and I don’t care to offend her. Drop it, Pep. We’ll have to take our medicine this time. If it gets too flagrant, then we will go to the authorities with it.”
Pep was not fully satisfied, however. He managed to see his friend who worked for the National a little later, and tried to enlist his coöperation in ferreting out the vandals who had damaged the electric sign.
The latter could not be replaced entire without sending to the city for some of the missing letters. This, however, led to one beneficial result. When the duplicate letters arrived some colored bulbs accompanied them, a suggestion of Jolly. Two nights later the brilliant sign invited and attracted attention in its new varicolored dress, showing up as the most conspicuous illumination on the boardwalk.
The gusty, showery weather got down to a chill unpleasant spell finally. On Thursday night the Wonderland was running, but to rather slim audiences. There were few venturesome visitors to the beach in the daytime and the matinee entertainments were curtailed.