We knew well enough he’d sleep all night.
“I kind of like him,” Westy said while we were on our way home; “I don’t
know what it is but there’s something about him I kind of like. I wish
he didn’t have to go back to Willisville.”
“He’s a funny little duffer,” I said. “There’ll be some surprise when we
stand him up in front of Recorder Van Wort in the morning.”
“Maybe they’ll send him up for being a firebug,” Westy said.
“A fire-bug?” I said. “He’s a whole menagerie.”
He said, “Well, I’m going to cut up through Terrace Place. I’ll be at
the car at seven o’clock to-morrow morning. You be there as soon as you
can get there.”
“I’ll be there by eight,” I told him. “You stop on your way and get him
some breakfast from Tony’s.”
On the way up the hill to my house (we live up on Blakeley’s Hill, it’s
dandy up there) I began to find out what people were thinking about the
fire. Maybe you think just on account of the Silver Fox Patrol being so
famous in the history of the world that Bridgeboro (that’s where I live)
is a great big place. Believe me, it isn’t big enough to hold the Silver
Fox Patrol. If Hoboken was about the size of an elephant, Bridgeboro
would be about as big as Pee-wee. So that shows you. There are only two
candy stores in Bridgeboro and one of them is no good. Bridgeboro is so
slow and tired it has to be sitting down all the time; that’s why they
call it the county seat.
So everybody knows all about everybody else in Bridgeboro. They’re good
scouts, they’re observant. Harry Donnelle says it takes a song three
years to get from New York to Bridgeboro, even if it’s fast music.
Anyway we’ve got a dandy river in Bridgeboro only it doesn’t stay there,
it just passes through. Gee, I don’t blame it.
Mr. Dallman, he was standing in front of his drug store (don’t ever buy
a soda in there whatever you do), he said to me, “Well, you kids have
got yourselves in trouble, haven’t you? What’s the matter? Young Slausen
been using you?”
From that I saw that people were suspecting him and not us. Gee whiz,
that’s the way it is when you have a bad name.
I said, “Westy Martin and I were the ones who had to go to the station.
We’re the ones that are accused if anybody is.”
“Yes, but you kids never started that fire,” he said. “You’re just
protecting somebody. They’ll have young Slausen behind the bars by this
time to-morrow. He and Bert Waring are a good pair. I guess young Waring
wanted to see his Buick burned up all right. Charlie’ll clear up a
couple of hundred dollars or so on his little flivver. I hope he’ll pay
me the three dollars he owes me when he gets his insurance. What were
you kids doing in there, anyway?”
I said, “If I tell you will you promise not to tell anybody?”
“It’s none of _my_ concern,” he said.
“Well, we were standing in there,” I said. “So now you know what we were
doing in there.”
He kind of laughed and he said, “Well, you youngsters want to be careful
and tell the truth or Chief O’Day will have the whole lot of you in the
lockup.”
“Is that so?” I said, kind of mad. “If I couldn’t find out who did a
thing any better than he does I’d get a job as commander-in-chief of a
kindergarten. He’s a regular Sherlock Nobody Holmes.”
“He’ll put young Slausen where he belongs,” Mr. Dallman said; “he sees
through this whole business.”
“Oh, sure,” I said, “he sees so fine that he can’t even see three
hundred dollars right under his feet. Good night, I’m going home.”
I guess it was about nine o’clock when I got to the house. I was kind of
anxious because I didn’t know what to say about where I had been to
supper. There wasn’t anybody around and I was just starting upstairs
when I heard my father call me. I went down again and I saw him in the
library. He was sitting there in the dark. I felt awful funny, kind of,
because it seemed as if he was feeling bad. I kind of knew it was on
account of me. He was just sitting in the big leather chair by the
library table. He was smoking a cigar and the light in that cigar was
all the light there was.
He said, “You’ve been at Westy’s, I suppose?” Because I often stay there
Sunday nights to tea.
I said, “I had supper with Westy.” And right away I was kind of sorry
because it was true the way I meant it but it wasn’t true the way _he_
meant it.
I said, “Where’s Mamsy and Marjorie?” (That’s what I call my
mother—Mamsy.)
He said, “They went to church and then to some meeting. Sit down, Roy.”
Then he didn’t speak for about a minute. The big clock out in the hall
sounded awful loud.