Ben laughed as he read it, and said, "Nothing could be better. I couldn't have done it so well myself."
"Seal it then, please. I don't want to read it over."
"Now, shall we start, or go to bed for an hour or two?" asked Ben, as the arrangements were all completed.
"I am afraid we would oversleep, and not get away till daylight, if we lie down. Let's sit up and talk till after midnight. We want to start before the first streak of light."
"All right."
They chatted a while, and then grew sleepy. So after finding himself nodding a number of times, Ralph said, "Let's just take a short nap, Ben."
"So I say."
Folding their arms on the table for a pillow, the boys dropped their heads upon them, and were speedily sleeping soundly. They might have slept till the rising-bell rang, only Ralph was awakened by a fearful dream, in which he thought Mr. Bernard had seized him, and was trying to hold him under the water as a punishment for lying, to wash off the sin of it, Ralph thought. He started up so violently that he nearly fell over backward.
"What! what's the matter?" cried Ben in alarm.
"Nothing but a dream," said Ralph laughing. "But it is lucky I had it, for it is getting toward morning, and we may as well be stealing out. We had better take our boots in our hands and just crawl, those confounded stairs squeak so!"