That was a good lay, it seemed; and it was carried out—­with one addition:  After Foy brought his horse he rang Central and called up the sheriff.

“Hello!  That you, Mr. Lisner?  This is Kitty Foy,” he said sweetly.  “Sheriff, I hate to bother you, but old Nueces River, your chief of police, is out of town.  And I thought you ought to know that the police force is all balled up.  They’re here at the Gadsden Purchase.  Bell Applegate is sick—­seems to be indigestion; Espalin is having a nervous spell; and Ben Creagan is bleeding from his happiest vein.  You’d better come see to ’em.  Good-by!”

Pringle smiled benevolently from the door.

“There!  I almost forgot to tell you boys.  We disapprove of your actions oh-very-much!  You know you were doing what was very, very wrong—­like three little mice that were playing in the barn though the old mouse said:  ’Little mice, beware!  When the owl comes singing “Too-whoo” take care!’ If you do it again we shall consider it deliberately unfriendly of you....  Well, I’ll toddle my decrepit old bones out of this.  Eleven o’clock!  How time has flown, to be sure!  Thank you for a pleasant evening.  Good-by, George.  Good-by, all!  Be good little boys—­go nighty-nighty!”

They raced to the corner, scurried down the first side street, turned again, and slowed to a gallop.  Pringle was in high feather; he caroled blithesome as he rode: 

    "So those three little owls flew back up in the barn—­
      Inky, dinky, doodum, day! 
    And they said, ‘Those little mice make us feel so nice and warm!’
      Inky, dinky, doodum, day! 
    Then they all began to sing, ‘Too-whit!  Too-who!’
    I don’t think much of this song, do you? 
    But there’s one thing about it—­’tis certainly true—­
      Inky, dinky, doodum, day!"

They reached the open; the gallop became a trot.

“I go north here,” said Foy at the cross-roads above the town.  “Which way for you?”

“North too,” said Pringle.  “I don’t know just where, but you can tell me.  I go to a railroad station first—­Aden.  Then to the Vorhis place?”

“Vorhis?  I’m going there myself?” said Foy.  “You didn’t tell me your name yet.”

“Pringle.”

“What?  Not John Wesley Pringle?  Great Scott, man!  I’ve heard Stella talk about you a thousand times.  Say, I’m sure glad to meet you!  My name’s Foy—­Christopher Foy.”

“Why, yes,” said Pringle.  “I think I’ve heard Stella speak of you, too.”

Chapter III

Being a child must have been great fun—­once.  Nowadays one would as lief be a Strasburg goose.  When you and I went to school it was not quite so bad.  True, neither of us could now extract a cube root with a stump puller, and it is sad to reflect how little call life has made for duodecimals.  Sometimes it seems that all our struggle with moody verbs and insubordinate conjunctions was a wicked waste—­poor little sleepy puzzleheads!  But there were certain joyous facts which we remember yet.  Lake Erie was very like a whale; Lake Ontario was a seal; and Italy was a boot.