“I think we ought to find a better name,” said Fatty, putting the cap back on his fountain-pen. “It’s a silly name, I think - the Find-Outers. Nobody would know that we were first-class detectives.”
“Well,we’re not,” said Larry. “We’re not really detectives at all, though we like to think we are. The name we have is just right - we’re only children who find out things.”
Fatty didn’t like that. “We’re more than that,” he said, settling down at the table. “Didn’t we beat old Goon twice? I don’t mind telling you I’m going to be a famous detective when I’m grown up, I think I’ve got just the mind for it.”
“The conceit to think so, you mean,” said Pip, grinning. “You don’t really know much about detectives and the way they work, Fatty.”
“Oh, don’t I!” said Fatty, beginning to wrap up the book on fishing together with the Christmas card. “That’s all you know, see? I’ve been studying hard. I’ve been reading spy books and detective books all the term.”
“Well, I bet you were bottom of the form then,” said Larry. “You can’t do that sort of thing and work, too.”
“I can,” said Fatty. “I was top of the form in everything. I always am. You won’t believe my maths marks - I only lost -”
“He’s off again,” said Pip to Larry. “He’s like a gramophone record, isn’t he?”
Fatty subsided and glared at Pip. “All right,” he said. “Say what you like - but I bet you don’t know how to do invisible writing, or get out of a locked room when the key isn’t your side!”
The others stared at him. “You don’t know how either,” said Pip disbelievingly.