“Someone’s got to pay for my broken window,” he insisted stubbornly, “and these boys admit they were connected with the rowdy crew that made themselves a disgrace to the town in front of my door. I shall expect him to fulfill his offer, which you heard him make, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Mole. The sooner that window pane is replaced the better I shall be pleased. That’s enough.”
With that he turned his back upon the group and hurried to reenter his house, as though fearful lest some of the spectators might endeavor to shame him out of accepting pay from an innocent party.
Frank and his three comrades stood talking with some of those who had gathered when the crash of broken glass, followed by angry words in the high-pitched voice of the miser, drew attention to the scene of action.
“Come, let’s be moving along, fellows,” Bluff finally remarked. It galled him to think they had been made the scapegoats by Andy Lasher and his set, though he knew only too well that once Frank’s mind was made up to pay for the broken window nothing could change him.
True to his promise, Frank first of all visited the hardware store, and engaged the owner to send a man around at once to the home of the miser, so as to replace a twelve-by-twenty pane of glass.
“I expect to have a good many orders like that, Frank, before the day is over,” remarked the dealer, laughingly. “They always come with the first snow, for you boys must have your fling. A ball went wide of the mark, did it, and picked out the window of Miser Chase’s house to smash?”
“But the trouble is, none of us threw it!” burst out Jerry, determined that the true facts should be known at any rate, even if they did have to foot the bill. “Andy Lasher hid a stone in his last ball, and expected to do Frank damage, for he shied it straight at his head; but Frank dodged, and bang went the glass!”
“Andy and his cowardly bunch pulled out like fun,” Bluff hastened to add; “and so we had to stand for it. But then Frank says we were in the crowd that was fighting, and it wasn’t fair that Mr. Chase, who was an innocent party, should suffer from our fun. So I reckon we’ll have to put our hands in our pockets and pay your bill, Mr. Benchley.”
The hardware man nodded his head. There was a twinkle in his eye as he observed Frank Langdon. He knew the sort of reputation Frank had in Centerville, although the latter had not been a resident there much more than three years, having come from away off in Maine at the time his father took the local bank over.