The two small boys who had walked into the trap were no match for the young collegian, who was training for the hundred yard dash next field day. If the boys had run in the same direction he would have had them both, but as one went east and the other west, he was obliged to make a choice. He came back holding at arm’s length an urchin whose squirmings were the most extraordinary display of agility that Peggy could remember to have witnessed. "Don’t try to carry that freezer," exclaimed Graham, as he returned with his struggling captive. "We’ll send some of the boys out for it. And now let’s come inside and see what we’ve got here." Graham’s captive proved to be a small boy with carroty hair, innumerable freckles, and a square chin, which, at this moment, seemed possessed of sufficient stubbornness to equip a regiment. His coat had at one time been too large for him, but had been fitted to his diminutive person by cutting the sleeves off at the elbows and pinning the surplus of the back over into a large plait by means of safety pins. His shoes were so large that Peggy no longer wondered at the peculiar flapping echo of the footsteps heard in the alley. "Well, you young scamp!" Graham held his captive under the chandelier and scowled down upon him impressively. "You’re making a nice early start, you are. Do you know where you’re likely to end up, if you keep on this way?" If the boy knew, he had no intention of telling. To all appearances he was both deaf and dumb. His mouth had become a straight, rather bluish line, above his defiant little chin. "No tongue, eh? Well, I guess we can find a way to make you talk. Just step to the ’phone, one of you," added Graham over his shoulder, "and call up the police station." There was a chorus of protests. "O, no, Graham. He’s so little." "And we’ve got the ice cream back, Graham, so no harm’s done." Peggy flung herself into the discussion. "Why, Graham, he was bringing it back." "Bringing it back," sneered Graham. "Why should he steal it, and then bring it back?" The logic was irresistible, but Peggy was a girl who never allowed logic to stand in the way of her facts. "I don’t know. But I know he was bringing it back. They were way up the alley when we heard them first, and they’d got to the gate and had it open, when you jumped at them." The lids of the small prisoner fluttered, lifted, and dropped again, but in that instant a glance had sped straight as an arrow to Peggy. The eyes had uttered an appeal which the stubborn lips would not speak. "You were bringing it back, weren’t you?" Peggy exclaimed. "Tell us about it." The boy squirmed, cast another furtive glance at Peggy, and seemed to find encouragement in her air of sympathetic attention. His mouth opened; and a hoarse voice exploded two words, as if they had been cannon crackers. "Skinny said--" Then, apparently overcome by the effect of his beginning, he came to a full stop.