Football -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
“Oh, that can wait. This is a lot more exciting. Go? You bet I’ll go.
Why, I may have to bail you out!”
After an instant of indecision Jim went on and Clem fell in beside him,
chattering animatedly to apparently deaf ears. Jim looked troubled, and
by the time they were half-way toward the main gate Clem noted the fact
and, after a second puzzled glance at his companion, said: “Look here,
old son, if you’d really rather I didn’t go along I won’t.”
Jim shook his head once more. “No, you might as well come, I guess. If
it’s what I think it is--”
“What do you think it is?” asked Clem when the other paused.
“Webb,” said Jim after a moment. “The fellow I lent the money to. Maybe
he didn’t go away, like he said he would, and maybe he’s got in trouble
with the police.”
Clem whistled expressively. “Bet you that’s just it!” he murmured. “I
didn’t want to say so, Jim, but I was absolutely certain that was he I
saw that day on West street.”
Jim nodded and they crossed Academy street in silence and went into
State. “Know where it is?” asked Jim presently. “The police place, I
mean.”
“Yes, turn to the left on West. It’s about four blocks over and one
through. Opposite the Odd Fellow’s building. Say, if they want money to
let him out, Jim, we’re in a mess, eh?”
Once more Jim nodded affirmatively. After that conversation was
virtually prohibited by the fact that the home-seeking throngs on
the busy streets made it nearly impossible for the two boys to stay
together. After a five-minute hurried walk they reached the Police
Station, an old red-brick building with an entrance of granite steps
and rusty iron-railings much too large for the small, square edifice.
Past the doorway, Jim paused in doubt, but Clem, with a familiarity
that might have seemed suspicious to one of uncharitable mind,
straightway guided him to the right and into a scantily furnished
apartment occupied principally by a broad oak railing, a large,
flat-topped desk and a large red-faced man in a blue uniform. There
were some minor furnishings too, such as a few chairs, a telephone,
three framed pictures and a wobbly costumer which sagged sidewise
under the weight of a policeman’s overcoat.
The big man behind the desk was proclaimed a sergeant by the insignia
on his sleeve and the letters on the hat that perched rakishly on the
back of his bristly head. There was a cigar in one corner of his mouth,
a much-chewed, down-at-the-side cigar that gave off rank fumes of
gray smoke and caused the sergeant to close one eye as he viewed the
arrivals.
“My name,” announced Jim in a voice so fraught with guilt that
the sergeant would have been entirely justified in locking him up
instantly, “is Todd. They said over at school that some one wanted to
see me here--about something.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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