Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/227

 the other boys had. He had somehow lost control and hit some people, a woman and a little boy, he thought, just a few blocks from home.

Well, that is the gist of the incident.

As I look back now on that trip to the police-station, I am shocked to remember how self-centred we were, all three. I can't recall that it occurred to any one of us to be concerned about the load of broken humanity that had gone, an hour earlier, to the hospital. Our sole concern seemed to be lest a couple of physically uninjured boys should spend a few hours of the night in jail. And just before the taxi stopped at the police-station to let His Excellency and Willys out, I know that I myself was actually wondering about this remote point: how it would affect Cornelia, and whether she would not suffer more in the injury which her son had inflicted upon others than if he had himself been injured. But what I was actually saying was, that I thought young Oliver did not drink; Cornelia seemed so sure of him. Oliver Senior exclaimed "Oh rot!" And then he added:—

"Why, the Infant and the furnace-man made a keg of raisin wine in the basement of our own apartment last Easter. He told me about it just