“Yes sir, we’ve had some night of it,” said the young scoutmaster, falling with mock weariness into a chair, throwing one knee over the other and tossing his hat very neatly onto one foot.  “My car is stalled up the road in front of the next house.  Lucky they ran out of gas.  There’s a sign up there says, ‘road closed,’ but I can’t see anything the matter with it.  Anyway, they ran out of gas and then ran out of the machine as I make out.  They deserted it when the supply gave out, I suppose.  All’s well that ends well, only we need gas.

“I bet—­I bet we’ve covered a hundred and fifty miles of territory to-night; what d’you say, Bill?” He didn’t pause long enough to give Bill, or the Justice either, a chance to speak.  “We saw the light in your window and just came in to see if you had a gallon or so of gas.  We’ve got another car up yonder.  Yes, sir, we’ve got The Bandit of Harrowing Highway looking like a tame canary for adventures; hey Scout Nick?  Nick’s our signal shark—­”

Peter Piper looked at Nick with humble reverence, and backed farther into the corner.  He could not take his eyes from him.

Justice Fee was about to say, “Here is one of the culprits,” but he did not get the chance.  Scoutmaster Ned had the floor, also the walls and the ceiling.  He seemed not to care anything about the culprits.  All he seemed to care about was getting his Hunkajunk car back and recounting their adventures.  Perhaps he was even a little grateful to the culprits for affording them such opportunity for adventure.  At all events, he kicked his hat around on the end of his foot and filled the room with his quick, breezy talk.

“Yes sir, we rode to Bridgeboro, New Jersey, got a prize cup for my kindergarten class to try for, looked in at a show, saw a guy with a lot of pistols, got home at about, oh I don’t know—­rowed over to the island where we’re camping, and these two kids rowed back to get the cup out of the car, and found the car gone and sent a signal that nobody saw and we came along in this fellow’s Packard.  Well, we’ve got the old Hunkajunk back, anyway, haven’t we kids?  I’ll say we have.  These kids told the world only the world was asleep or something.  Well, we’ve had pretty good luck at that, I’ll say; we found the car, the school burned down—­”

Suddenly, like a burst of thunder rose the recovered voice of Pee-wee Harris, while in frantic accompaniment his feet beat the floor and his small arms swung in wild excitement.  With his deadly vocal artillery he silenced the breezy talk of Scoutmaster Ned and set the company aghast with his triumphant clamor.

“I’ve got an insulation—­I mean an inspiration—­listen—­keep still—­everybody!  I’m the one that—­that fixed it so you could have all those adventures—­I’m the one—­I got into the wrong car—­in Bridgeboro—­I saw that show and I thought you were the ones that had pistols and now I know that you’re not murderers—­because I was half asleep and I came out because I hate educational films but I like bandits, but I don’t like real ones—­”