it--you know--circum--"

The teacher did not know. But his interest was aroused at this whispered
tale of armed bandits and of a big stolen car. Pee-wee completed the
tale in breathless excitement. He told all, from the beginning. "They
locked it in," he concluded, "and went away; but one of the doors, the
big one, was locked on the inside and I opened it. Anybody can take the
car out. Those men have gone away across the lake. If you'll drive it to
Bridgeboro you can stay at my house and have breakfast and I'll tell Mr.
Bartlett that you helped me, and gee whiz, they'll thank, you a lot.
Maybe you know about scouts because manual training teachers know a lot
about scouts on account of scouts making bird-houses and all things like
that, and so maybe you know about good turns. That'll be a peach of a
good turn. And if I tell about it you'll get a kind of a medal from our
troop with your name on it. What's your name? Mine's Walter Harris, but
the fellows in my troop call me Pee-wee, but I should worry about them.
Will you help me? What's your name?"

"Mr. Swiper," said the stranger, rather thoughtfully; "let's go and look
it over."

He was certainly considering the proposition and Pee-wee accompanied him
back to the lake, keeping up a running fire of enthusiastic
encouragement and representing to him the delight and self-satisfaction
of circumventing a pair of scoundrels. "They've got pistols and
everything," he said as a clincher, "and if they'd steal a car they'd
kill somebody, wouldn't they?"

"Seventy pistols is a good many," said Mr. Swiper, incredulously.