Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/94

 Patriotic Sons of Liberty, I think they were called—one of those pre-Revolutionary crowds that he was in. And it had gone, too. In short, they were desperate, and they weren't the sort to do the Prodigal Son act or to take it out in suicide. That night, the night after they lost their coat buttons, one of them said: 'We fellows'—only he said it in long perambulating sentences, of course, with 'damme's' and 'gadzooks' and things—'we fellows are at the end of our rope. We've got to do something, and do it quick, or our names are mud. What's the matter with holding up a stage-coach some of these fine nights? There are lots of people gathering for Commencement festivities, and they're loaded down with jewelry, many of them. We can find out the names of our victims when the news comes out, and can pay them back when we are flush again.'

"Well, at first my ancestor, David, balked and was indignant—at least this is the way he wrote it down in his diary, which was found after his death: 'Sir, I would have