No sooner were the six choice spirits alone
together than Lewis unfolded a plan for "a spree" for the following
night.
The moon was about at the full, and his proposal was that they should
leave the house in the manner they had done more than once before, by
means of the window and the root of the porch, go to Rice's and have
a supper, which was to be previously ordered, and afterwards a
moonlight skate on the lake.
"Rip Van Winkle will never wake," said Flagg, "not if you fire a
cannon-ball under his bed, and we'll be back and in our places and
have a good morning nap before he suspects a thing."
But some of the better disposed among the boys demurred, fresh as
they were from the doctor's late appeal to them, and their knowledge
of the sad errand upon which he had gone; and foremost among them was
Percy Neville.
"I don't know," he said, doubtfully, when Lewis Flagg unfolded his
plan. "I don't know. Isn't it rather shabby after what the doctor
said to us? And--you know--Dick Leacraft might be dying--might be
dead--they say he's awfully hurt--and we wouldn't like to think about
it afterwards if we were breaking rules when the doctor--"
But the expression upon Flagg's face stopped him.
"Hear the sentiment of him!" sneered the bad, reckless boy; "just
hear the sentiment of him! Who'd have thought Neville was such a Miss
Nancy, such a coward? But you're going if the rest go, for we're all
in the same box and have got to stand by one another--none are going
to be left behind to make a good thing for themselves if anything
does leak out.
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