But I trust you all realize the situation and its outcome, and that you will never allow yourselves to be made ridiculous again in any such way." "I don't believe we shall," Laura replied.

"We felt ashamed of ourselves afterwards, but we were silly enough to feel because we had pledged ourselves to forage for fruit and vegetables that the joke must be carried out." "Tom Reade," snapped Susie Sharp, "you are just bursting with laughter that you can hardly hold back." "Not I!" Tom denied promptly.

"I am congratulating myself that we boys had sense enough not to take seriously your claim that you had been robbing anyone's garden.

As it happened, you did that very thing, but you didn't know it, and you didn't mean to." There was an embarrassed silence.

Then Dick proposed: "Let's have a good-natured laugh all around and forget the whole thing." That relieved the awkwardness of the situation.