The Highflyers Author:Clarence Budington Kelland General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1919 Original Publisher: A. L. Burt Subjects: World War, 1914-1918 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Mill... more »ion-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III WHEN the heir to a hundred millions of dollars is arrested in this country for any act less than murder, he does not expect to sleep in a cell. The police do not expect him to sleep in a cell, and the public would be astonished -- and a little vexed -- if he were compelled to do so. They would be vexed because in the event of his detention, they would be deprived of the pleasure of railing against our institutions and of saying to their neighbors in the street-car that, "a man with enough money can get away with anything." "Couldn't you bring in a kid without usin' the wood?" the lieutenant at the desk said to the officer who had floored Potter. It did not seem fitting to that lieutenant that a hundred millions of dollars should have its scalp abraided by a night stick. "Kid, hell!" said the officer. "If you'd 'a' seen the wallop he handed Tom!" Potter clung to the edge of the desk, dizzy, swaying, his head not clear between blow and drink. "Here," said the lieutenant, "come in here and lay down. Want I should telephone anybody -- or git a doctor?" "No," said Potter, sinking on the lounge and closing his eyes. The lieutenant went out and called the superintendent on the telephone. "Got young Waite here," he said. "He tried to tear the Pontchartrain up by the roots and Kerr had to drop the locust on him a bit. What '111 do wit' the kid?" "Hurt?" "Didn't improve him none." "Drunk?" "So-so." "Send somebody over to the Tuller with him and have him put to bed." It was not for the public to know that the superintendent had...« less