re.

"Hello, Dodge," was Prescott's ready greeting. "I didn't hear
you knock."

"Then maybe you will, before long," retorted Bert, in a voice
of barely suppressed fury. "Prescott, you sneak, how long since
you have added grand larceny to your other bad habits?"

"Try that over again," requested Dick calmly. "I don't believe
I quite catch you."

"Yes, you do," Dodge retorted. "Come now, no lying about it."

"The nearest that I come to understanding you, as yet," Dick answered
in an unruffled voice, "is that you appear to be trying to be
offensive."

"I'll be more than offensive with you, before I get through!"
cried Bert, his temper rising.

The third member of the visiting party was a man of about forty
years, of sandy complexion and with a stubby, bristling red moustache.
He looked like a man who had been born a fighter, though his
face expressed keen attention rather than a desire to be quarrelsome.
In dress this man looked as though he might be a farmer. Dick
and his friends judged the man to be a rustic constable.

"A nice trick you played on us!" Bert went on angrily. "You took
our front tires off the wheels of the car and ran away with them."

"Easy! Careful!" Dick smilingly advised. "Did anyone see us
take the tires off and run away with them?"

Bert looked astonished, then gulped chokingly. Did Prescott and
his friends intend to deny the charge?

"No one had to see you take the tires," Bert went on angrily.
"All that is necessary is for us to discover the merchandise
on you!"

"Then you have missed some tires, and you think I'm wearing them?"
Dick chuckled.

"Don't try to sneak, lie or equivocate" commanded Bert Dodge,
his face flushing with anger. "Those are my tires hanging from
that line!"

"Are they?" Prescott inquired, in a tone of the mildest curiosity.

"You know they are!"

"Then, if the tires are your property, just help yourself!" Dick
coolly answered. "If they are your tires, I will even offer to
forego making any storage charges for the time they have been.
hanging there."

"Hang you!" choked Bert

Then he turned to the man with them, demanding:

"Don't you see a pretty clear case of grand larceny here?"

"I can't sa-ay that I do---yet," drawled the stranger.

"You'll never see a clearer case!" quivered young Dodge.

To this the stranger did not reply. He had been looking over
this sextette of high school boys, and if one might judge from
his face, the man