The last car moved slowly by, a child sucking a stick of candy glanced curiously out at the diminutive cause of all the trouble and then— Then, directly across the tracks two bright lights stared at him in the unobstructed highway; two lights looking cross-eyed. “What’s the matter with that train? Has it got the sleeping sickness?” Townsend asked. “What are _you_ doing down on the ground?” “Townsend!” said Pee-wee. “That’s me, help me lift the ladder off the car; what’s new?” “A lot of adventures are new; I stumbled against the big handle that moves the switch and—and—you know I told you there was a magazine up there? Well, when I knew I must have—where did you put the bananas?—When I knew I must have moved the switch on that side track up there where there’s a factory that isn’t one any more that you didn’t see, I didn’t have any matches—_listen_—I didn’t have any matches—” “Well, I guess we’ll have to go home,” said Townsend, “so we won’t need any matches.” “What do you mean _go home_?” roared Pee-wee. “Oh, they tell me I’d better not try running my car without a license. I got off this time, I suppose, because I didn’t have any money and they didn’t like to send me to jail; maybe the jail’s full or something. They made me feel like a pickpocket; justice of the peace said he’d heard fish stories before but never heard a goat story—” “He thinks he’s smart,” Pee-wee shouted. “I’ve heard lots of goat stories. He thinks he’s smart! I—” “Well, I’ll tell you how it is, Kid,” said Townsend with an air of resignation. “You see—” “I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to go home,” shouted Pee-wee. “If they send me to jail I’ll keep on eating so they can’t afford to keep me.” “I dare say that’s why they _didn’t_ keep me,” said Townsend; “because there’s no money in it. But don’t you see, Kid, that with no license card and with me looking so young they’re going to stop me and haul me in at every plaguy town we pass through. If I looked old enough to have a license, probably no one would stop me and I’d take a chance. But we’re going to be stopped in Kingston, we’re going to be stopped in Saugerties, we’re going to be stopped in Catskill, we’re going to have no end of trouble. The hardest thing to make people believe is the truth, sometimes—Kid,” Townsend added wistfully. During the dismal rehearsal of their probable adventures, Pee-wee, looking darkly significant, had restrained himself with difficulty. Indeed it was only by the happy inspiration of using the banana as a gag that he was able to control his voice at all. He now exploded like a stick of dynamite. “The truth is something or other and will—will what do you call it—I can prove—” “Yes, I’ve heard that,” said Townsend; “the truth is mighty and will prevail. But goat stories don’t go.” “_That—_”