"Why did you say you did?" asked Dorothy.

"Just to plague Alice. But I won't do it again. Ugh! that was nasty stuff she gave me. That's what she'd give me if I _was_ p'izened. I don't want to be p'izened," declared the little fellow, frankly.

"And you don't want to say what isn't so, either, eh?" queried Dora.

"We-ell," said Master Tommy, slowly, "lots of things that _ain't_ so, is better than them that _are_ so. There's fairy stories."

"Quite right," said Dora, quickly. "But there's nightmares, too--bad dreams, you know. They are not so, but they aren't pleasant to dream, are they?"

"Oh, no!" cried Tommy. "And I had a turrible bad dream--onct! And I was scart--yes, sir! And Billy heard me crying and he took me out of my crib and took me into bed with him."

Alice smiled. "I remember Tommy told about that. He said the cats got to fighting and were scratching and biting him."

"And Billy woked me up and took me to bed with him," said Tommy, placidly. "I wish Billy would come home again."

"When did this happen?" asked Dorothy, quickly, trying to turn the conversation from an unpleasant topic, as Alice's eyes filled with tears.

"Just the other night," said Tommy.

"But Billy's been away two weeks."

"It was jes' afore he went-ed away."

"It wasn't long before Billy went," agreed Alice, nodding.

"I know when!" cried Tommy. "It was the night afore I felled and sc.r.a.ped my knee on the doorstep."

"Why, Tommy!" cried his sister, springing out of her chair. "Are you sure of that?"

"Yes'm. I be sure," declared Tommy. "I dreamed the cats were scratchin'

me; an' then that very nex' mornin' the old doorstep scratched me!"

cried the small boy.

Alice turned to her visitors, her face pale in her earnestness.

"Oh, girls!" she cried. "I remember that night of Tommy's dream very well. He hurt his knee on Wednesday--the morning following the burglary.

Billy took Tommy into bed with him before midnight, and they slept together all night. Doesn't that prove that Billy was not out of the house on the night of the burglary? Doesn't it?"

Dora and Dorothy looked at each other, and each slowly shook her head.

"Do you suppose the police would accept Tommy's testimony?" Dora asked, sadly.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CANOE RACE

The twins were very sorry for Alice and the other Longs and they did not believe the absent Billy guilty as charged; but who in authority would believe the testimony of such a little boy as Tommy? The fact that Billy had been at home, and in his bed, all the night of the burglary at Stresch & Potter's store was established in the minds of Billy's friends only.

The twins saw Chet Belding on the way home and heard some news, after telling Billy's friend of what Tommy had said.

"Of course Billy hadn't any hand in that robbery," Chet declared. "But I wish he hadn't run away. Father and Mr. Hargrew say they'd both go his bail. I wish I knew where he was."

"Didn't you think he was hiding somewhere on Cavern Island?" asked Dora, shrewdly.

"Yes, I did. I found his knife Sat.u.r.day when we were in that cave,"

admitted Chet, frankly. "Don't you girls tell anybody. But Lance and I were through all the caverns with a man who knows them like a book--that was after the police searched. He couldn't be found.

"Oh, and I say! did you hear about Tony and his monkey?"

"We read that Tony had been fighting and was arrested," Dorothy said.

"Yep. And it was a near thing he didn't get sent to jail. The judge only fined him. The other man the police drove out of Centerport altogether.

They thought he was the worse of the two. And Tony had paid for his concession at the park, and promised to be good.

"But the joke of it is," continued Chet, laughing, "the police don't want Tony to tell all he knows. You see, they shut him into the calaboose at the park and when they went to take him across on the boat to court, Tony wasn't there."

"He had escaped?" interrupted Dorothy.

"That's what," said Chet. "And how do you suppose he'd done it?"

"We couldn't guess," cried the girls.

"Why, the monkey unlocked the door of the cage and let his master out.

The jailer had left the key in the lock while he went to breakfast, and the monkey did the rest. You know, that was one of the tricks we saw him do," continued Chet.

"Tony didn't think he had to stay in jail if the door was unlocked, so he walked down to his booth and got his own breakfast. And the police found him there and took him along to court. But they were easy on Tony for fear he would make the park police the laughing stock of the city.

Lance and I happened to be over there early--it was when we searched for Billy in the caves--and we saw Tony rearrested."

"That Italian must be a bad one," Dora said. "How did he get off?"

"Tony said the man he was fighting with cheated him out of his share of some money," replied Chet. "And that man is gone, so who is to know the truth?"

The stretch of placid Lake Luna between the boat landing of Central High and the easterly end of Cavern Island was dotted with craft of various kinds and sizes, several afternoons later, when the twins slipped away from Aunt Dora and--with a word to their father in a whisper as to their goal--ran down to the dock and got their canoe into the lake.

Aunt Dora was suffering from what she called a "grumbly head"--which meant that she had a mild attack of neuralgia.

"But mercy, sirs!" Mrs. Betsey said, in a tone of exasperation rather strange for that dear old lady, "she has a 'grumbly' tongue all the time. I don't know what I shall do about keeping Mary if she stays much longer, girls."

"For the good of the family I may have to admit my ident.i.ty and go home with her," groaned Dora.

"No, you sha'n't!" cried her twin. "You shall not be sacrificed. If Mary goes, we'll divide the work between us, and hire a laundress once a week to relieve Mrs. Betsey."

"My! what a bright girl you are, Dory," laughed Dora. "You've got it all fixed, haven't you? But what about after-hour athletics? No canoeing, and other fun. We'd have all our time out of school taken up with the housework."

"I don't care, Dora!" said Dorothy, firmly. "You could never live with Auntie. Why, she'd nag you to death."