"The workmen are busy there now."
"That may all be, but they can afford to lend them to us for a little
while; they will be just as good for their use after we have done with
them." There was the rogue's sly look in Benjamin's eye when he made
the last remark.
"Then you expect they will loan them to you; but I guess you will be
mistaken," responded Fred.
"I will borrow them in this way: We will go this evening, after the
workmen have gone home, and tug them over here, and make the wharf
before bedtime." Benjamin made this proposition for the purpose of
adding to their sport.
"And get ourselves into trouble thereby," answered a third boy. "I
will agree to do it if you will bear all the blame of stealing them."
"Stealing!" exclaimed Benjamin, who was so bent on sport that he had
no thought of stealing. "It is not stealing to take stones. A man
could not sell a million tons of them for a copper."
"Well, anyhow, the man who has borne the expense of drawing them there
won't thank you for taking them."
"I do not ask them to thank me. I do not think the act deserves any
thanks." And a roguish twinkle of the eye showed that Benjamin knew he
was doing wrong for the sake of getting a little sport. "Wouldn't it
be a joke on those fellows if they should find their pile of stones
missing in the morning?"
"Let us do it," said John, who was taken with the idea of playing off
a joke.
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