Warde said, “The plot seems to be getting thicker. What’s the matter?”

“The lights are slowly and peacefully going out,” I whispered. “I don’t know where they’re going.”

“They ought not to be allowed out after nine o’clock,” Hervey said.

“I don’t know what kind of parents they can have,” Brent whispered.

“Will they come back, I wonder?” Hervey said.

“Not if they’re anything like you,” I said. “They’ll probably stay out all night.”

“Oh, the lights are going out,” we could hear the girl say. “Where’s Mr. Sorronto?” I guess she lived around there; anyway she seemed to know the man.

“He—he’s gone out too,” Pee-wee said. “You mean the fat man?”

She said, “The meter needs a quarter in it. We have one like that in my house.”

“I’ll put a quarter in,” Pee-wee said, “and he can give it to me when he gets back. Where’s the meter?”

“Some little hero?” Brent whispered.

All the while the light was getting dimmer and dimmer, and the kid kept fumbling around in his pocket. “I got a quarter,” he said.

He could just about see the passageway that led down to the cellar, it was so dim by that time, but he started for it very proud and swagger-like. We could hear him tramping down the stairs as if he were going to kill a couple of dragons like the “shivellers” of old.

“He thinks he’s a knight of the square table or something or other,” Warde said. “Sir Writing-pad or whatever his name was.”

Pretty soon, zip, up went the lights again and we knew our young hero had tracked the quarter meter to its lair. He came swaggering back again and sat down at the table.

“He can even make lights out of quarters,” I said.

In about five minutes the two of them got up and the waiter gave Pee-wee a check. I guess that was what reminded him that he only had nine cents in his pocket. All of a sudden he looked funny—kind of blank.

“I’ll give you five cents,” he said to the boy, “and you can get the quarter from the boss when he comes back. I put a quarter in the meter.”

“You payer de mun,” the boy said, very suspicious.

“I paid it already to the meter,” Pee-wee said.

“You payer de mun now; no go meet ’er,” the boy said.

Pee-wee kept fumbling in his pockets; he looked awful funny. Then he sat down again and the girl sat down too and they just sat there looking at each other.

“I have to wait till the man comes back so he can give me the quarter I dropped in the meter,” Pee-wee said. “Anyway, we’re not in a hurry, are we? Because anyway, he’ll be back very soon. And anyway I ought to wait and tell him what I did, hey? That’s only right. If I paid that boy now and went away the man might wonder who was tampering with his property and going into his cellar and everything. Scouts, they have to be careful about those things—I have to tell him what I did—See? You see how it is?”

“I think it’s poky sitting here,” the girl said. “We can hear the music here all right,” Pee-wee said. “You can always hear music better at a distance—you ask anybody.”

The waiter boy walked away, all the while keeping his eye on Pee-wee. He didn’t seem to understand but anyway he wasn’t going to let those two get away. I had to laugh to see how he went over and sat behind the counter and kept his eye on them.

“Gee whiz, one thing,” Pee-wee said; “I’m good and sore from falling down; my leg is stiff; maybe I ought to rest anyway, hey?”

The girl said, “They’re dancing over in the pavilion. Why can’t we go over there? It’s so poky sitting here. I want to have a dance. I know all the boys over there.”

“Do you mean to tell me you’d dance right after eating waffles?” the kid said. “Gee, that shows you don’t know what’s good for you. A scout isn’t supposed to hike right away after eating—gee whiz, you ask anybody.”

“I don’t want to ask anybody,” the girl said.

“Mr. Sorronto is selling things over at the pavilion and he won’t come back till the dancing is all over. He’s got a whole big pile of things on his tray. He won’t come back till the intermission. I’m just longing to have a dance,” she said. “I don’t see why you don’t come back later and tell Mr. Sorronto. He’ll be only too glad to give you back your twenty-five cents.”

“There might be a lot of reasons,” Pee-wee said. “Maybe the place might be closed when I come back. Now I see I had—maybe I didn’t have any right to do that. Do you mean to say I ought to sneak off?”

All the while the waiter kept his eye on them, and the girl was kind of sulky. She wasn’t mad, but just a little sulky. She wanted to go away, I could see that. She just pouted and said, “It’s poky sitting here after we’re all finished.”

Pee-wee said, “You’ll feel more like dancing if you have a good rest.”

“They’re playing a fox-trot,” the girl said.

“I know all about foxes,” Pee-wee said. “Do you want me to tell you about them?”

Oh, boy, I nearly died laughing. Brent had to put his hand over my mouth and Warde had to put his hand over Hervey’s mouth. There sat the kid with a terrible, heroic scowl on his face, and his feet kind of locked in the legs of the chair, and only nine cents in his pocket, and the girl looking at him and waiting, and the Italian keeping his eye on him, and the dancing going on over at the pavilion, and Mr. Sorronto lost in the shuffle. I don’t know where he was, he just forgot to come back, I guess. Poor kid, but just the same I couldn’t help laughing. It wouldn’t have bothered a sharpy much. He’d have made her pay the quarter, he should worry. I know sharpies, all right.

All of a sudden, Hervey Willetts broke loose. He went sailing into the room with that funny hop, skip and jump he has, and went winding in and out among the tables, and just as he was passing Pee-wee he grabbed him by the hand and began shaking it and saying, “H’lo, Scout Harris, I haven’t seen you in quite a while.” All the while he kept on going and went winding in and out among the tables and out through the door again. But I noticed Pee-wee had something in his hand under the table and I knew it was money.

“All right, if you don’t want to wait, I’ll pay him now,” Pee-wee said. “Gee whiz, it doesn’t make any difference to me.” Then I could see from the change he got that Hervey must have passed him a five dollar bill. That was the day he got his allowance from home; he got it every two weeks. I know he must have got it that very day or he wouldn’t have had it all still in his pocket. That was Hervey all over, reckless and careless.

Gee, I thought about that a lot later, especially after what happened pretty soon. Because while the four of us were standing outside laughing, he was the one to break loose and go to Pee-wee’s rescue. And he did it in a way so the girl would never know. I heard her say to Pee-wee, “That boy’s just a silly.”

But, jiminies, I can see him now the way he went in and out among those tables. He can’t do things like other people, he just can’t. Afterwards he told us that was called the Tangled Trail. Gee whiz, little we thought that pretty soon he’d be on a real tangled trail. Little we thought when we were all the time saying, “the plot grows thicker,” how pretty soon it would really grow thicker—for Hervey anyway....