"Oh, please let him go, Mrs. Smith," put in Benny. "Pedro is our secretary. We can't have the meeting without him." Ma likes Benny so well I just knew she would have to give in. She knew it, too, I guess, for she looked at us a minute, sort of smiling to herself; then she said: "Well, if he will come home at nine o'clock and promise to take a nap to-morrow afternoon, I'll let him go. He has been losing too much sleep lately." I didn't think much of that nap business. Daytime wasn't made to sleep in, except, maybe, the early morning hours when you first wake up. "I'll promise to lie down and shut my eyes," I told her, "but I can't promise to take a nap, can I? The sleep may not come." That is true. I've laid awake a lot of times fifteen or twenty minutes and maybe more, at night, trying hard to go to sleep and not feeling a bit sleepy. That is why I was in bed when Skinny came around the next afternoon. He knew that I would be, and instead of coming into the back yard and up on the stoop, as he usually does, he went up the drive between our house and Phillips' and whistled softly under my window. With one bound I was out of bed and looking down at him. He had on his Scout uniform, and his rope was wound around his shoulders. I was just going to tell him to wait until I could come downstairs, when he put one finger to his lips, then looked up and down the drive to see who was watching. There was nobody in sight. Ma was taking a nap in her room and I guess Mrs. Phillips was, too, across the way. "S-s-t!" he hissed. "Are you alone?" I nodded. It didn't seem safe to say anything. "You ain't chained to the bed, or nothin', are you?" "Nary a chain," I told him. "We are all out of chains." "'Tis well!" said he, coiling up the rope in one hand and getting ready to throw. "Quick, now, and mum's the word!" I caught the rope as it came in through the window and fastened one end to the bed. Then I threw out the other end, climbed out myself, and shinned down. "What's the matter?" I asked, as soon as I had reached the ground. "Let's go around and untie the rope; then I'll tell you." A few minutes later he was showing me a letter which he had from Mr. Norton, who was away on business. This is what the letter said: