“I set you free,” said Hervey, “so you have to pay me back. You have to go up to New Street and see Warner Lewis and Craig Hobson and tell them I sent you. You must only just say to them that they dared me I could get you out of jail so now they got their answer. Seeing is believing, you tell them that. You’ll see a tent on the lawn of one of those houses near the fire-alarm box; that’s where they are. And you can tell them they’re a couple of sap-headed fools and they can take their scout troop and go to blazes with it. You just tell them that. You say I sent you because seeing is believing and they get their faces washed with their own dare.” Chesty did not know about this errand, undertaken so soon upon his release from jail. But he could not refuse Hervey and he had not the wit to inquire why his hero did not deliver this high-handed address in person. It may be assumed that Hervey had his reasons; perhaps he thought that the effect would be better with himself withdrawn from the scene. He was on time for supper that evening and did not venture to absent himself afterward. Instead he waited for the talk which all through the meal he suspected his father was reserving for a quiet session in the living room. “Now, Hervey,” said Mr. Walton, “this matter is closed. You did right to go and give yourself up--I don’t want to hear your reasons. What you did was right. And I think that you did it because you couldn’t get comfortable till you did. So we won’t give too much credit to your dare or your stunt or whatever it was. I----” “Just the same I’ll never do anything for the scouts,” Hervey flared up. “I’m through with that bunch for good and all. They got Chesty McCullen in jail; one of those fellers is a monitor in school, so that shows you what kind of a feller he is. Nix on that outfit. I’m going perch fishing with Chesty to-morrow and I’m going to blow him to a soda too. He’s a poor kid and look what he got--_some deal_, I’ll say. That kid can beat any of that bunch swimming.” Mr. Walton listened soberly, his lips pursed. “But you see if you hadn’t sent in the false alarm, Chesty wouldn’t have got in trouble. You got him out, but you also got him in. Isn’t that so, Herve?” “I never squealed; no siree, I never did that.”