CHAPTER XIV—WE ARE CRIMINALS
When I got to the hotel sheds, there was Pee-wee standing all out of breath, and Harry and all the rest of them standing around, gaping. Brent was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak, and Harry was saying, “Some scout! Some bullhead!”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Look in—look in—look in—side—it!” Pee-wee panted, “the back—seat.”
“It isn’t my car at all,” Harry said, “it’s got a New York license. If it hadn’t been for that old tin can of yours stopping every ten feet last night I could have got a squint at the tail-light. Smiled at it, huh? You smiled at the wrong car. You started somebody else’s motor.”
“It’s a nineteen-twenty touring Cadillac,” Brent said, laughing all the while; “Pee-wee was the first to get in it. He showed me the nice leather seats and the shock-absorbers.”
“We’ll need some shock-absorbers before the day’s out, I’m thinking,” Harry said; “this is some swell scout outfit—not! Got into the wrong car! Look up the street and see if you see the sheriff coming. Pee-wee, don’t ever mention the name of scout to me again. ‘A scout is observant!’ Excuse me, while I smile.”
“Well,” Brent said, all the while trying not to laugh, “we’re out for adventure; we have to take what comes.”
“We don’t have to take other people’s machines,” Harry said. He wasn’t mad, because he always sees the funny side of things himself, and he was laughing, too, but I guess all of us felt pretty cheap, because a scout—well, you know——
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when a party of Boy Scouts would steal an auto,” he said. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything to do, but sit around and wait for the owner to come and have us arrested. I wonder if they have a nice comfortable jail here, with modern improvements. I hate a jail without electric lights.”
Brent said in that funny way of his, “I rather like the way things are turning out. I’ve never been in jail. I’ve often promised little Bill here that some day we’d go to jail, and now we’re going to have our wish. I’ve read about prisoners escaping from jail—ladders, files, and all that sort of stuff. Now’s our chance. We’ll drug a keeper. Ever drug a keeper, Harry? I’d a great deal rather escape from a jail than find buried treasure. That’s a real adventure; regular Monte Cristo stuff.”
“I kinder think I’d like that, too,” Harry said; “I never thought of it before.”
“This is just the right kind of a trip,” Brent said, “we don’t have to run after the adventures; they come after us.”
“Oh, they’ll come after us all right,” Harry said.
“Will we have to go to prison for twenty years?” poor little Skinny piped up.
“People who make mistakes like that ought to go up for life,” Harry said; “and then some.”
“Lis—lis—lis—lis—’en!” Pee-wee began shouting, all the while waving the newspaper in the air. He was just getting his breath, but nobody paid any attention to him. Harry and Brent sat there on a bench, side by side, and it was awful funny to see them—they just kept us laughing.
“Look—look—under the seat!” Pee-wee was trying to say.
“And the tell-tale papers are gone,” Harry said. “Curses! Curses!”
“My idea,” Brent said, “would be to escape into a boat from one of the jail windows. I hope the jail is near a river, but I don’t suppose we can have everything. It ought to be on a dark night. This is going to be great.”
“We should have kidnapped a maiden,” Harry said; “there ought to be a maiden in it. If there had only been a gold-haired maiden in the machine——”
“Shut up! You’re crazy!” Pee-wee yelled. “The plot is thicker—it’s terribly thick. There is a maiden—listen—shut up—listen, will you—there is a—a maiden!”
“Is she under the back seat?” Brent wanted to know.
“Open the back seat and let her out, poor girl,” Harry said.
“How about ransom?” Brent said.
“Read this paper!” at last Pee-wee managed to shout. “Will you keep still and read this paper? The plot is thicker than you think it is.”
“It must be about solid,” Harry said.
“Read this paper before you look under the seat,” Pee-wee yelled.
“Speak not to me, P. Harris,” Harry said; “you’re the cause of my downfall. I was an honest young man until I met you.”
“You make me tired!” Pee-wee fairly screamed.
Just then somebody, gee whiz, I don’t know who, because everyone was laughing so, but anyway, somebody started to lift the back seat of the Cadillac when Pee-wee tumbled pell-mell into the car and pushed him out and sat plunk in the middle of the seat himself.
“There’s going to be—a—a—what-d’ye-call-it—a revolution!” he said.
“I’ll join it,” Brent said.
“Put me down,” Harry told him, “the more adventures the better. I like revolutions.”
“I mean a revelation,” Pee-wee yelled; “you just read that paper!”
Laugh! Gee whiz, I don’t know whether anyone there remembered about those things under the seat. Maybe Grove thought he had dreamed it. As for Skinny, he had been too far gone under the buffalo robe to think twice about it, I guess. I just watched Harry and Brent, while Harry read the articles out loud, with all the fellows crowding around him, to get a squint at it. And all the while, Pee-wee sat straight up on the middle of that back seat like a king on his throne. He was holding the seat down against all comers. He looked like a young hero.
“A burglary, hey?” Harry said, awful funny. “Let’s see; jewelry and silverware and a punch bowl. Fine. And Elsa West. Brent, you didn’t steal Elsa’s necklace, did you, without me knowing anything about it? I would have been glad to help you. I make a specialty of necklaces. Well, P. Harris, I’ve read the article. Tell us the worst.”
“You said a scout was not observant,” Pee-wee said, very solemn like. “You said it sarcastic, sort of. It was an insinuation. You said never to mention scouts to you again—didn’t you? You said I was a something-or-other.”
“You are,” Harry said; “deny it, if you can.”
“Who’s responsible for bringing this machine here? You said I was. I have won five hundred dollars! I saved—saved that what’s-her-name’s necklace for her. A scout is helpful—it says so. She has to thank the Boy Scouts if her necklace is safe. Those burglars are foiled! Maybe you think you can get the best of the Boy Scouts. Let those people hunt around all they want—inside and outside—they won’t find that punch bowl. Do you know why? Because all those things are safe in the hands of the 1st Bridgeboro Troop, Boy Scouts of America. That’s why. Look! Here’s the box of jewelry. Here’s the necklace. Here’s the silverware. It’s saved, because I started Brent Gaylong off in this automobile. A scout is—a scout is—efficient—so now!”
What did I tell you about Pee-wee? No matter what he does, he always lands right side up. He makes a mistake and turns out a hero.
You can’t beat him.