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Page 15
"Come out here!" cried Ledermann, as Adolph hauled the boy out of
the door.
"What's the matter?" cried Porky. "I ain't doin' any harm! I
was tired, and went in there, and I must have gone to sleep.
How'd you know I was there? Are you police?"
"Yes, that's it!" said Ledermann. "You've guessed it. We are
policemen."
"Where's your uniforms?" he asked then. "You ain't policemen.
What you doin' here yourself? You can't arrest me for just goin'
to sleep in this dinky little dog house. Gee, I might have slept
all night! Guess I'll go along. Pop and Mom'll fix me for bein'
so late." He started to rise, but Ledermann pushed him back.
"Not so fast, not so fast, young follow!" he said slowly. "I
would like to find out, if possible, just how much asleep you
were. You see we don't think you would listen to anything that
was not intended for your ears, but we want you to tell us if you
did hear any little thing. By mistake, of course."
"Wasting time!" grunted Adolph. "Let me tickle him with my
little toy here. Safety first, as these people always say."
"Be quiet!" ordered Ledermann. "And you too, young fellow! If
you try to scream, we will kill you."
"Aw, quit your kiddn'!" said Porky cheekily. "What would I want
to yell for? I don't want to get arrested any more than I am. I
want to go home! tell you, how could I hear anything when I was
asleep? I want to go home! What's it to me what you talk
about?" He sniffed, and drew his cuff across his eyes.
"Let me have him," said Adolph. "Let me go outside the gates
with him."
"No," said Porky, using his cuff again. "I ain't goin' with
nobody. I know how to get home. I don't have to have somebody
take me." He tried to wiggle away, but felt Adolph's clutch
close like an iron vise.
"There, there," said Ledermann quietly, as he nudged Adolph under
cover of the darkness. "All we want to know is how much you
heard. It is nothing to me what you do after that. You see my
friend here does not mean what he says, but--well, I may as well
tell you how it is." He turned the flashlight on the boy's face
and held it there, watching him like a hawk while he talked. "My
friend has invented something that will prove to be a very
wonderful thing for everybody in the world, and he is very
anxious that it shall be kept a secret until he is ready to put
it on the market. Now you are a smart boy, and I will give you
one guess to see if you can tell me what we were talking about.
Tell me what you think he has invented."
Porky thought a moment with a deep frown on his face.
"It's a patent medicine he has invented," he ventured finally.
"That's a good guess," said Ledermann. "Such a good guess that I
think you must have heard some of our talk."
"I didn't, honest," said Porky. "Couldn't you see I was asleep?
What do you suppose I care about your old patent medicine? So
long as you ain't policemen, let me go. I want to go home!"
"You shall go," said Ledermann, scowling in the direction of
Adolph, "but I am afraid you might follow us and find out about
the medicine. If you stay right here for a while, why, we will
go away, and you will never know to whom you have been talking in
this pitch dark. So we will just get you to do that much for us.
And if you tell any one how you came to be here, or what we have
said to you, we will come back and kill you and kill all your
people!"
He hissed the awful threat in the boy's ear, and shutting off
the flashlight, he took a cord from his pocket, and wound it
tightly around the boy's wrists and ankles, tying it in a
peculiar knot. Then with a handkerchief he gagged him.
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