"After all," said Nimble Dick, breaking a silence with speech, as
though the subject of which he spoke had been under discussion among
them, "after all, it was rather sneaking to bolt and say nothing; I kind
of wish we hadn't done it."
"That's what I told you all along," said Dirk Colson, with even unusual
sullenness, "but you would go and do it, and we was fools enough to
follow you."
"And I'll bet she had oysters or something!" This from Jerry Tompkins;
you have probably no idea how hungry he was at that moment.
"They was goin' to do somethin' new to-night; that there Dennis girl
told me so when I met her on the street yesterday; something that we
would like first rate, she said--a brand-new notion." This was Stephen
Crowley's contribution to the general discomfort.
"Well," said Nimble Dick, and the sigh with which he spoke the word
would have gone to Mrs. Roberts' heart, "I s'pose it's all up now; I
shouldn't wonder if we never got another bid; I wouldn't if I was them,
I know that; and their old theatre wasn't no great shakes, after all.
We've been a pack of fools, and I don't mind owning it."
Whereupon, having reached the corner, they separated and went glumly to
their homes. And this is gratitude! What a pity Mr.
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