"Will you promise not to say anything?"

"Yes."

"Will you swear it?"

Tim had read a great many "yellow-covered" books in his time, in which
tall buccaneers with long beards and bloodshot eyes required their
victims to "swear," and he seemed to attach some importance to the
ceremony. Charles "swore," though with considerable reluctance, not to
reveal the secret, when it should be imparted to him.

"You must join our society, now."

"Society?"

"Yes; we meet to-night at eight o'clock, in the woods back of my house."

"What sort of a society is it, Tim?" asked Charles, with a great many
misgivings.

"That you shall learn when we meet. Will you come?"

"My father won't let me go out in the evening."

"Run out, then."

Tim suggested various expedients for deceiving his parents, and finally
Charles promised to attend the meeting.