Then my father said, “You and Westy will clear yourselves, of course. I’m not worrying about that. But I want you to stand up bravely and tell everything you know. I don’t want you to be nervous. I’ll be there. I couldn’t go to the city till this thing is settled.” “It’ll be settled all right,” I told him. He said, “Remember, you must tell _the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth_.” I said, “Believe me, they’ll get the biggest dose of the truth they ever had.” Then he said he was going to bed and that he wasn’t going to worry about it at all, and he wasn’t going to think about it, because I was a scout and maybe I knew what was best, and anyway he knew I’d tell the truth, so he should worry about that. But just the same he stayed downstairs there in the dark for a couple of hours. Because a long time after, I could hear him winding the big grandfather’s clock down in the hall. Then I could hear his footsteps on the stairs. He came up awful slow like. CHAPTER XXVII—ON OUR WAY If all the lessons in algebra were like that hearing, or whatever you call it, I’d be satisfied, because there wasn’t any. That was the day that Westy and I got sentenced to three hundred dollars’ reward. So if you were looking forward to seeing us get sent to prison for four or five years, you get left. I bet you’re sorry. Anyway I’ll tell you about it. Good and early Westy and I went down to the submarine to get the inventor. He was the one that invented sleep all right, that kid. He was sprawled all over the floor under one of the seats, dead to the wicked world. Westy said, “He’s sleeping even sounder than when we left him last night.” “Why shouldn’t he?” I said. “Look at the practice he’s had all night. Look where his feet are; all over the plush seat of our slightly used twin six Packard touring car.” Westy said, “You mean slightly abused. What shall we do? Wake him up? Get hold of his neck, will you, and haul him out?” We hauled him out but it didn’t do any good. “Roll him up the aisle,” I said. We tried that and it didn’t do any good. “You get hold of his legs,” Westy said, “and I’ll get hold of his neck and we’ll swing him like a hammock.” “That only rocks him to sleep more,” I said. “There’s nothing to do but wait for the next earthquake.” “That may be a hundred years,” Westy said. “Maybe when we move the car across Willow Place he’ll wake up. We’ll tell Mr. Jenson to give it a good hard bump.” “That will be next Saturday,” I said. “Maybe if the kid were only awake he could invent a way to wake himself up.” “Let’s try once more,” I said. “Scouts never give up.” “They never wake up, you mean,” Westy said. “You don’t call this a scout, do you?” I asked him. “If he is he ought to be in the dormouse patrol. They’re always supposed to be asleep.”