He also blushed.
"If you were honest you would be anxious to give an account of
yourselves," he asserted, ignoring the unpleasant matter of the dogs. "I
am afraid you are very wicked boys. You have stolen these vegetables and
fruits. Thieves are tried by the magistrates, you know, and sent to
prison. I shall take you to the police-station. There the constable will
find means to make you confess."
Beyond provoking a fresh paroxysm of kicking, these adjurations were
without result. His captives appeared equally impervious to shame,
contrition or alarm. They remained obstinately mute. Whereupon it began
to dawn upon their captor that his position risked becoming not a little
invidious, since the practical difficulty of carrying his threats into
execution was so great. How could he haul two sturdy, active children,
plus a sack still containing a goodly quantity of garden produce, some
quarter of a mile without help? To let them go, on the other hand, was
to have them incontinently vanish into those trailing whitish vapours
creeping over the face of the landscape.
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