So I said:
“Yes, Chief, I carried out the orders of the band to the fullest. My trusty torch has laid the vermin's dwelling low.”
“You?” said Swatty. “You didn't do it. I did it.” Toady was sitting on the window sill, and Bony was in a chair looking at a magazine. Toady just sat and popped his eyes at us.
“Aw, now!” he said, “you didn't burn that barn down, either of you. You're just fooling.”
Well, I guess that was a little too much for anybody to say, especially when he was a member of the Red Avengers himself.
“I did, too!” I said. “I took my oath to do it, and I did it. Do you think I'd take my oath to do it, and then not do it? Of course I burned it down, when I said I would!”
“Of course you would,” said Swatty. “If you took your oath to burn down Veek's barn you'd do it. Only I was the one that took the oath; you wasn't. Toady had better not say I'd take an oath and then not do it! When you trust a job to the Chief of the Red Avengers it'll be done. At nine of night I sneaked up to old Dad Veek's barn—”
“Ho! Nine!” I said. “Well, no wonder! No wonder you thought you did it, sneaking up at nine! Now I know why you thought you did it, when I was the one that really did it! Why, I wouldn't wait until nine when I had promised to set a barn afire at nine. I'd be afraid I might not get the match lit in time, or something. I was there at a quarter of nine, and I had the barn on fire long before nine.” Swatty kind of looked at me.
“Oh!” he said. “Whereabouts did you set the fire going?”
I thought a minute.