"If it's anything I can tell you, I'll do it." "S-t-u-n-g!" spelled Dick slowly.
Tom suddenly sat up, glaring suspiciously at his chum.
"Now, what have I let myself in for ?" demanded Reade.
"You gave your word you'd tell me, if you could, Tom," Dick went on, "and no one else can tell me nearly as well as you can.

What I want to know is this: What happened to you, that night a few weeks ago, when you broke a bottle under my window, and then started down the street as fast as you could go with a crowd of Gridley folks behind you ?" "You promised!" chorused the other four boys.
"Well, if that isn't a low-down way to dig out of me what is purely my own business!" exclaimed Tom Reade, with a scowl.
Nevertheless Tom, like the other members of Dick & Co., had a high idea of the sacredness of his word, so, after a sigh, he went on: "When I ran away from your window, Dick, with that pack of people behind me, I dashed into a full-fledged scrape that was none of mine.

You know that Mr.Ritchie, whom some of the Central Grammar boys plague so fearfully, just because he always gets so mad and makes such threats against all boys in general?
"Well, it seems that, while I was helping Timmy Finbrink out of his difficulties, and afterwards tried to fool you with the fake window-breaking, some of the Central fellows had been down at Ritchie's playing tick-tack on one of his front windows.

Tick-tack is a stupid game, and it got me into a mess that night.
"It seems that Mr.Ritchie had already been bothered that evening before the Central fellows began, and he had telephoned to a friend down the street who had two college boys visiting him.

So the friend and the two college fellows went out, on their way to Mr.
Ritchie's.