Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/51

This page has been validated.
US AND THE BOTTLEMAN

one of the wavy patches of sunlight, and we read it again.

"Did you really think anybody'd find it?" Jerry asked suddenly, and I told him I had n't thought so.

"Neither did I," he said; "let alone such a jolly old soul. Why, he'd be better than Aunt on a picnic."

"I do wonder why he has to stay there," I said.

"Perhaps he's a fugitive from justice," Jerry suggested; "or perhaps he's a prisoner and the bearded person comes out with Spanish Inquisition things to make him confess his horrible crime."

"He sounds like a person who'd done a horrible crime, does n't he!" I said in scorn.

"Well, then," said Jerry, who really has the most inspired ideas for plots, "perhaps he's an innocent old man whose wicked

37