CHAPTER III

A STRANGE PROPOSITION

Perhaps some of my readers may not know what the contrivance known
as a "tic-tac" is like. Those of you who have made them, of
course, do not need to be told. If you ever put them on any
person's window, I hope you selected a house where there were only
boys and girls or young people to be startled by the tic-tac. It
is no joke, though at first it may seem like one, to scare an old
person with the affair. So if any boy or girl makes a tic-tac
after the description given here, I trust he or she will be careful
on whom the prank is played.

To make a tic-tac a long string, a pin and a small nail are all
that is required. A short piece of string is broken from the
larger piece, and to one end of this latter the pin is fastened by
being thrust through a knot.

To the other end or the short cord is attached the nail. Then the
long string is tied to the short string a little distance above the
nail.

With this contrivance all made ready Bob and Ted sneaked up under
the front window of the widow's house. It was the work of but a
moment for Bob to stick the point of the pin in the wooden part of